Housing crisis...your view?

spark240

I heard this morning on the radio about the need for more houses etc, building on green belt and so on, then this guy says the evidence suggests that we have 1.4 million surplus houses already...just that no-one wants them, or cant afford them.

The survey also suggest that most new home / FTB think they have the right to a new 2/3 bed semi on a new estate, they simply dont want old stock.

What you reckon? 

ICBM

Even if it has to be new houses there's more than enough brownfield land which could be built on to not need to pander to the corporate housebuilders who want nice easy - and hence more profitable - greenfield sites to destroy.

Stevepage

There's been plenty of programmes about thousands upon thousands of houses left empty for years. Mostly prominant up north.so local councils do need to address that problem.

Alot of these empty places have been let to rot, so they do require TLC that most probably just can't afford.

ICBM

Stevepage said:

There's been plenty of programmes about thousands upon thousands of houses left empty for years. Mostly prominant up north.so local councils do need to address that problem.

Alot of these empty places have been let to rot, so they do require TLC that most probably just can't afford.

It's also true that many of them don't comply with modern insulation, damp-proofing or services standards and would need so much work to fix them that it might be cheaper to demolish and build new.

joeyowen

Most FTP are paying at least £500 p/m rent whilst also trying to save £15k +
It's only normal for them to have a sense of entitlement after that graft.

ThorpyFX

We purposely looked for an older house when we bought ours. Our logic was that

a) they arent as popular in the area as there are a load of new builds going up.
b) they are roomier with more overall plot area
c) they are cheaper for a comparable size house than a new build.
d)more opportunity to negotiate on price if its a slow mover...

So if people are focussing on new builds only, i think they may be missing a trick. That being said builders do offer a LOT of incentives to buy new from them so i can understand the draw, that and the chance to spec it as you like along with no work needed.....

DamianP

Considering that the primary function of housing is now as an investment opportunity for the wealthy it's no surprise that there are problems.
It won't change anytime soon. There is no desire among those with the influence to enact change.

RocknRollDave

Selling off council houses cheap kicked it all off, way back.
I'd love to buy a house. Can't afford it. Simple as that.

Fretwired

spark240 said:

I heard this morning on the radio about the need for more houses etc, building on green belt and so on, then this guy says the evidence suggests that we have 1.4 million surplus houses already...just that no-one wants them, or cant afford them.

The survey also suggest that most new home / FTB think they have the right to a new 2/3 bed semi on a new estate, they simply dont want old stock.

What you reckon? 

I can only comment on where I live - there are very few empty homes and in my area there are plans to build 36,000 new homes, but no new roads. There has now been a counter proposal to build a new city which makes more sense which will have all the infrastructure - roads, school, hospital extra. There is a lot of green belt land where I live but a high percentage of it is ugly ex-farm land. We should just build on it.

Sambostar

My solution would be a cull on southerners, dig a big trench around London and float it out to France and call it Monaco part deux, make a weather machine to make it sunny up north. Stop unlimited unskilled immigration from outside and inside the EU, fine people outrageously for empty housing stock or unused land and get people who are actually educated on the planning committee, rather than in advisory roles.

JezWynd

Air BnB seems to have had a detrimental effect on the rental market. Lots of people who in the past would have had a lodger now find it suits them more to have an overnight guest or two. My son lives in Brighton and the rental sector is crazy there with 'agents' adding on spurious fees at every turn.

UnclePsychosis

Part of the problem is that young people don't vote. 

Now, obviously that's a sweeping generalisation but in demographic terms, it's older people who vote and its older people who stand to lose if lots of new houses go up (their nest eggs lose value). So no government is going to risk overly pissing off their core vote by forcing through the building of lots of new houses.

It's the same reason why nobody has ever dared tackle the state pension ponzi scheme - national insurance should have increased in the 90s but it would be a massive vote loser so nobody dared. 

If I read the ipsos mori statistics right then 40% of 18-24 year olds voted in the last GE as compared to over 70% of over 45 year olds. Turnout is also lower amongst renters and the working classes - the people more likely to need help buying a house.

If the 5 million odd 18-24 year olds who don't vote start showing up to elections - regardless of who they vote for - then political parties may finally start pursuing policies that target younger people instead of pandering to the older NIMBY and BANANA demographics. 

Axe_meister

I'm always confused about the state of the housing market.
I live in SE London. A couple of houses near me have been boarded up for year but reacently have been gutted and turned into 4 smaller affordable houses (if you can call £500,000 affordable).
They didn't sell, they couldn't be rented out. I assume the developer has now got bust as they are now up for auction.

Fretwired

Rents to fall?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/03/unprecedented-recent-times-rents-across-uk-set-fall-year/

randella

It's easy to spin a survey, either by setting leading questions or massaging the numbers, to suit a news agenda.  I'd be suspicious that most first-time buyers feel entitled to a big house.  Every single person I know who doesn't own a home and is trying to buy one would be happy with a flat in an area where they aren't going to get shot at by the locals when they nip out to the off-licence.  As for not wanting old stock?  I'd kill for an older house but round here the prices are inflated beyond my means for anything made pre-1930.

I managed to get in when banks were lending like water, before the crash.  Got a sensible mortgage which I could still afford if the interest rate doubled (of course, it fell in the end!), grafted away, chipped at the mortgage.   On balance and despite the crash, I'm well in the black now and lucky to be so - it certainly wasn't through my own guile as a lot of homeowners will tell you ("oh you've just got to buy at the right time like us, we're so clever", blah blah fucking blah).

The big bit of luck for me is that through sheer circumstance, I wouldn't be able to do it now with the means I had then.  I really really feel for anyone trying to buy for the first time around here, never mind in the south-east.  We need more houses built and lots of them.  Prices are insane, the market can't exist just to prop up speculators.

And while I'm about it, why can't planners and builders alike use a bit of imagination with new housing?  Why does it all have to be made to look like old housing just to appease a few Telegraph readers?  Use new materials and new designs, use space more efficiently, and build houses that are desirable instead of shoeboxes built to a legal minimum room size.

fields5069

I don't understand the desire for a new-build house. A master bedroom where a king-sized bed would be a squeeze, lack of storage space, etc. I'm sure there are premium builds which address these common issues, but by and large even a 4-bedder would be a squeeze for us 3.

And yes I agree that modern housing looks so boring. Doesn't actually look like old housing, just looks shit, imagination is needed!

Sambostar

The problem is, lots of houses go up on greenfield sites due to the power of the housing lobby and pressure from central government, but the surrounding infrastructure and communications to work aren't improved so the new residents rely on the existing network and it just causes traffic misery.  Councils are poor, the government is dictatorial and the private sector lobbyists are strong, so consequently you get the same problems that exist in cities with regard to impossibility of upgrading the antiquated infrastructure because of all the surrounding houses and businesses unless you are willing to pay a premium for massively expensive works.  We must have the strictest, but most incompetent, corrupt and short sited planning system in the whole of Europe.

And year it does piss me off that they make all these new box estates with flint infill in the brickwork or fake stone quions when the overall footprint of the over priced estate resembles colditz.

randella

Sambostar said:

And year it does piss me off that they make all these new box estates with flint infill in the brickwork or fake stone quions when the overall footprint of the over priced estate resembles colditz.

I never could stick watching Grand Designs.

Apart from the odd one in which some poisonous, moneyed architect with far too much self importance buys a plot of land in the middle of a London street of £1.6 million Georgian terraces and builds a house that looks like a spaceship out of Battlestar Galactica just to piss the locals off.

Fretwired

The biggest thing that could be done is to build retirement homes for older people who are effectively 'squatting' in houses that are too big for them. My mum would love to get out of her house but can't find anything to downsize into - she lives near me and there are 'old folks bungalows' which are very popular. You have to be over 55 to buy one - if more of these were built you'd suddenly find more family homes on the market as people like my mum downsized into a smaller property designed for the older person which they can manage. There would then be a lot of family homes available which would energise the housing market.

We also have some 'crash pad' developments which sold out the minute they were launched. They are designed for the busy millennial who just wants somewhere to 'crash' due to their busy lifestyle. Basically it's three room flat - one large bedroom, a bathroom and an open area with a kitchen/diner and lounge. Great way to get on the housing ladder and the developers put them up on a disused factory site within a two minute walk of the main railway station with links to Kings Cross. When the come on the market they sell very quickly.

mellowsun

spark240 said:

I heard this morning on the radio about the need for more houses etc, building on green belt and so on, then this guy says the evidence suggests that we have 1.4 million surplus houses already...just that no-one wants them, or cant afford them.


The survey also suggest that most new home / FTB think they have the right to a new 2/3 bed semi on a new estate, they simply dont want old stock.

What you reckon? 

I think the evidence is correct - there are many homes standing empty.  

I'm surprised that FTBs want a new build - the quality can be shocking and why would you want to live on a ring road or on an estate on the edge of town?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jan/28/bovis-home-hundreds-of-snags-angry-buyers-unfinished-homes

57Deluxe

All those ugly 60s/70s office blocks in middle of town centers that maybe were used by the Inland Revenue or Prudential etc... Now empty and redundant - Don't knock em down to replace with the same but in angled glass! Convert them to flats!

https://www.newofficeeurope.com/images/serviced-offices/serviced-offices-barkat-house-finchley-road-camden-london_5_800_458_s.jpg