New housing in the UK

[RichTea90]

Sorry this is a bit of a ranty post but I live in South East England I’m 33 years old. Trying to get on the property ladder with a 40k deposit and a joint income of £119k. We are looking at 3 bed new build as want to start a family but they’re all so expensive and about 30-40k out of our budget.

Why is the government letting all of these greedy house building companies build and sell properties that are just not affordable to normal, every day people / couples / families. I think it’s truly scandalous.

instead im staring at Rightmove looking at a lot of properties that are so outdated or falling down and we just don’t have enough money to / disposable income to then do the property up.

feeling rather stressed 😩 is anyone else in the same position or understands what I mean

👏🏼 👏🏼

and we both work extremely hard! I have two jobs, and my partner also takes on additional work.

we both feel super deflated and like life is on hold. I turn 34 next month, and I’m worrying about my fertility. I prioritised career to be able to start a family, and now we are in a cost of greed crisis in this country. It is demoralising.

I just wish the interest rates could come down. Even 3-4%. We just got a mortgage in principle for 6.7%. We are trying to understand why. Partner is only 1.5 years self employed so we wonder if it’s that.

They’ve built thousands of new houses in the area I live in recent years. None of it has brought prices down. They are more expensive than older houses. Supply and demand with housing isn’t that simplistic.

There are also quite a lot of older houses for sale if I go on Rightmove. Problem is they call cost too much! Many are sitting unsold for months due to the prices.

What do you think the answer is?!

Prices need to come down or at least stop inflating at such silly rates in some areas . Sellers need to stop expecting massive year on year increases when they’re not even doing anything to their houses.
My BIL lives in a town where the prices haven’t changed since the early 2000s. Everyone tends to buy than rent and have a lot more disposable income!

We bought in the south east eight years ago (crucially not on a train line so not the easiest commute to London), a newish house for around £425k, four bed detached with a small-medium garden. We had a bigger deposit that you, OP, but lower salaries. Despite now having a combined income nearly twice as high as we had then, we’d struggle to afford our own home if we tried to buy it now! That seems crazy to me. It’s partly the interest rates but also just that house prices have increased so far beyond wage increases.

Thanks for sharing this. I find it reassuring.

We’ve our eye on a 3 bed house that is £450k. They’re willing to offer a 5% deposit contribution so it’ll bring it down for us…. It is 18 minutes walk from a train station. The problem is the best deal we can get is 6.7% - it’s insane.

I said to OH, we could get rid of his car and go down to one car. I told him I’m willing to become a hermit 🤣

suddenly jealous of housing association tenants….

6.7 is crazy. Can you wait until he’s had two years of accounts? Have you been to a broker?

It’s mental isn’t it. We’ve been to a broker yes… we have spoken to a second one today, and they’re going to come back with info tomorrow as they said they had to apply directly to someone.

His two years worth of accounts won’t be available until October. So we’d lose out on this house we love.

Can you afford the repayments on the 6.7%?

Could you fixed at the lowest term and remortgage when you DP has more accounts behind him to get a better rate?

DD is self employed and waited for three years of accounts. Ditto DH back in the day. Without 2 years you are not getting mortgage offers you could.

Housebuilders should make profits. If Labour want more houses, and they do, their suggestion is change to the planning system. The minute you put on controls on who can have what the investors run a mile. As a country we cannot afford that. A property market is a market. Demand drives price. No demand, prices come down. That might take a while but it is of course the difference between areas of the uk. Some areas are bouyant and others are not so prices reflect this. A great income in Lincolnshire will get you quite a lot. In other areas it won’t.

We cannot force people to move and the ideas that everyone must have a property with a garden is fanciful with a shortage of land released for housing. And what about farming a food security? We cannot all have what we want but food supply is vital.

Absolute nonsense. Developers landbank, insist on excessive profits at the expense of social tenures, take fines rather than live up to their agreed responsibilities and build pretty shitty quality homes.

The industry needs more regulation, not less.

They have been building thousands of homes in London every year - and yet prices continue to rise.

Exactly.

And talking of food security, the government has just ruled in favour of building on farmland in my area for houses which the council had rejected and it went to appeal . So more over priced rubbish built new builds that locals can’t afford and farm land gone forever.

And talking of food security, the government has just ruled in favour of building on farmland in my area for houses which the council had rejected and it went to appeal . So more over priced rubbish built new builds that locals can’t afford and farm land gone forever.

OK, so high rises are bad, building outwards from cities onto countryside is bad....what sort of housing ARE we supposed to build and where's it all supposed to go? Imaginary bubble castles on the dark side of the moon?

We apparently need 4 million extra homes. If you don't want to concrete meadows, we'll have to accept taller buildings. If you won't accept taller, denser housing, cities will have to spread outwards into the green belt.

@user1477391263 Posters don’t went housing. They don’t understand how a market works. They want the status quo and the population to shrink. I think there’s a huge dose of communism here with anti business, anti immigration and anti housing near me. 20,000 homes is nothing when we were supposed to get 300,000 pa. 20,000 still results in a shortage but of course we should make Johnny Foreigner go home and build somewhere for no profit! This totally ignores the up front costs of building anything. It’s total ignorance.

So what if developers buy land designated for housing! As it can take years and years to get detailed pp, is it surprising? You cannot buy land and immediately develop it. Some is contaminated. Some requires many new roads and councils have all sorts of requirements. If it was easy it would be done. I’m interested in what Labour might do to simplify planning.

There are already loads of houses for sale where I am though. There isn’t a lack of houses. I can go on Rightmove and there’s loads of them. Some unsold for months or longer.

What we have is a lack of infrastructure with these new houses. No new GP practices or hospitals. The occasional new school but that’s about it. It means the areas become worse to live in.

Don’t be so obtuse. Just because we haven’t drunk the trickle-down coolaid doesn’t male us ill-informed or NIMBYS or bigots. 20,000 in London alone, or are you suggesting the south east absorb it all?

The last few years we’ve built approx 250k new homes - only 50,000 short. Yet prices still continue to rise.

It is a fallacy that building more homes will lead to lower prices.

When building is planned, there are more options than greenbelt or high rise. Medium density housing, brown belt are all options.

Reallocation, legislation against second homes, air bnb, foreign investment are all valid options.

And you haven’t once engaged with one of the core issues with high rise, high density building - that the system doesn’t include improving and expanding infrastructure for all the new residents. It’s not being a NIMBY to point out that you can’t just place thousands more people in an area without adding more doctors, transport, schools, shops, nurseries, jobs.

You keep saying it takes years to get planning - where is the evidence of this? The only thing I can find is some references to a property developer survey - hardly impartial.

Less regulation is the stalwart of idiot Tories who still believe there’s such a thing as a free market and trickle down economics. Deluded and unable to understand the nuances factors that influence the economy.

@Scottishwildcat You simply don’t understand how planning works for larger developments. Generally it must be in a development plan worked up by the planning authority and local parish councils. This in itself can take years and also be rejected by the inspector. If it is drawn up and agreed, that informs us where housing will be built in larger numbers.Parish councils are only concerned with small developments at their local level. Larger developments certainly include health and school provision but they of course have to be staffed by other bodies. In some cases falling roles mean schools might not be needed. Thats for the local council to decide. Ditto health facilities and NHS. Builders don’t staff health centres.

Also houses shift people from A to B. They are not all new people to the country. They are even children of existing families!

After a plan is agreed, developers want the land designated for housing. They negotiate to buy and have options. They might need a lot of options because then the shit usually hits the fan. The council need to approve details. Locals don’t want the houses so object. Then there’s road design, sewerage, drainage, site layout, possible contamination, mix and size of homes etc and it can take years to sort all of this out and get agreements. Where it’s not agreed there will be appeals to the planning inspectorate with KCs and specialist consultants involved.

DH is such a consultant. Proposals are worked on for years. Some developers pull out and stop without building anything. Happens all the time. If anyone thinks it’s quick, cheap and easy money they are bonkers. DH has made plenty working for developers but it’s slow, frustrating and leads to poor housing quality because the money is spent elsewhere. So, yes I do know exactly what goes on. Have a look at your local plan and then see how quickly anything is built. It will take years.

If we don’t want to use green fields, going up is the only answer. As in any densely populated area. Pressure on prices is because people want to live in an area. Where fewer do, it’s cheaper for obvious reasons. However it’s usually down to proximity of work. Unless we understand how housing works, we cannot adjust the issues that make building slow.

ah, of course your husband is a planning consultant.

‘Man whose job depends on a system being complex and slow confirms system is slow and complex.’

Not the proof you think it is.

The system has been so spectacularly deregulated by twats like Boris Johnson, there is very little councils can do to stop planning - and people like your husband simply help the developers to strong-arm unsuitable and damaging developments through. There isn’t the money - or the legislative power - to stop them. It’s a disgrace.

Pressure on prices is because people want to live in an area. Where fewer do, it’s cheaper for obvious reasons.

So building more doesn’t affect house prices. Yes. I told you that.

It means that current house building is inadequate and there needs to be more of it.

I understand concerns about short-term pressure on services, but building more does not grow more people; it causes them to move around from place to place. Those people are already living somewhere (parents’ houses, flatshares) and consuming services in the place where they live; pressure on services will actually fall in the areas they are currently living in as they move away. If you are annoyed about people moving into your area, it’s not enough to say “This will put more pressure on services” - you need to come up with a case as to why your area deserves to be more free from pressure on services than any other area.

Long-term, people moving into an area do not just sit there like pudding consuming services - they also work in and staff local services.

Homebuilding ticked up a bit in the late 2010s but is still really low compared with previous decades. The overall trend is down, not up. See chart.

Meanwhile, we have much longer life expectency, far more one-person householdes, and a population increase. There needs to be a lot more building.

I don't think immigration levels will continue to be this high long term (2022-2023 were anomalies for various reason, but even if all immigration stopped overnight, there is a backlog of need for more housing because building has fallen over the decades).

The good news is that if you do density (and reduce the space given over to cars), you don't have to end up with sprawl even with a bigger population and more households - you can actually end up with cities than work better. The Dutch have a higher population density than the Brits, yet have more floorspace per person. That is mostly because the Dutch are OK with taller buildings, and organize their transportation more efficiently - cars are widely used in rural areas where there is lots of space for them, but are restricted in cities, while there is very good biking and PT infrastructure.

"""I’m in a weird position where we don’t have rich families who can help us out, but we don’t qualify for any benefits, help to buy schemes or anything like that. We literally have x for deposit and our salaries and that’s it."""

Why do you consider this a 'weird position' op? That's bog-standard. Plus didn't you say you were mid-thirties and still living with your parents? So can't you see that's your family helping you out? I didn't have that. I left home to go to Uni and didn't ever go back. Still got on the housing ladder in the SE.
Something doesn't add up if you've both been home owners before/earn a lot and no rental costs and still haven't save a deposit. Are you guys divorcees?

Sorry but this is coming across as judgemental and I don’t wish to answer!

Again you’re trying (and failing) to make out I’m a NIMBY.

I’m not ‘annoyed about people moving into my area.

I’m annoyed about:

• inappropriate, expensive developments
• lack of social tenures
• lack of legislation to either compel the creation of infrastructure to support it, or at least to restrict the number of homes built until the infrastructure is there to support it.
• lack of planning to address need instead of greed (ie family homes not flats that are sold off to investors, build to rent, ghost towers)
• a planning system set up to favour developers not communities
• the blasé attitude of developers to their legal responsibilities - where the density of housing and associated mega profits make it no big deal to fail to build what they agreed to and simple pay the fine afterwards
• the inability of councils to hold them to account because of financial constraints (or lack of will)
• the revolving door between council / government positions and developer boards
• the encroachment of development into green belt and metropolitan open land

You can keep banging the same old ‘we need more housing’ drum but until other aspects of the system are fixed - like the type of housing, who can buy it, onerous freeholds, stupid schemes like Help to Buy (which mainly helped the developers), nothing will be fixed for people like the OP.