The End of Social Housing for Life

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

If you cut housing benefit so that rents were no longer being subsidised by the taxpayer then more people could afford market rents as they would fall.

Ultimately, you can't charge more as a business than your customers can afford. If that happens and landlords go bust, the houses still exist to be bought or to be rented out by other landlords.

Very true but how much will rents drop when housing benefits drops hard to predict I would say. I think we will only know when it has happened.

ukcarper

Let’s say our person just manages to get into the top 60% £18200 take home £1200 Rents would have to drop by a big percentage for him to be able to rent privately with no help.

Generali

ukcarper wrote: »

Very true but how much will rents drop when housing benefits drops hard to predict I would say. I think we will only know when it has happened.

I agree. Economic theory (which is very strong on supply and demand) suggests that prices would fall but by less than the cut in housing benefits. In other words, landlords would charge less and tenants pay a little more.

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

I agree. Economic theory (which is very strong on supply and demand) suggests that prices would fall but by less than the cut in housing benefits. In other words, landlords would charge less and tenants pay a little more.

I’m have no training in economics but I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than that, just one thing to add into mix not all privately rented property is LHA.

Generali

ukcarper wrote: »

I’m have no training in economics but I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than that, just one thing to add into mix not all privately rented property is LHA.

It is more complex than that of course because with housing you're not talking about a single product but many that can be substituted more or less perfectly.

Overall it is reasonable to say that if you reduce subsidies on rented housing, rents will fall on average.

kindofagilr

Jowo wrote: »

Same with the other flaw where people are entitled to a larger property when they have more kids but there is no requirement for them to move to smaller properties when their kids leave the nest. This is one reason why there are huge bottlenecks as it advantages tenants who get entry into social housing when they are needy but are never required to make adjustments when their circumstances change.

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Totally agree with this, I think if a family have lived in a council house since they had kids, then the kids move out but the couple are still in a 3 bed house they should be given a 1 bed house and let the 3 bed house become free for a family

Jowo_2

kindofagilr wrote: »

Totally agree with this, I think if a family have lived in a council house since they had kids, then the kids move out but the couple are still in a 3 bed house they should be given a 1 bed house and let the 3 bed house become free for a family

Yes, I've made the point about the contradictions and perverse entitlements that the social housing allocation policies have.

Generally most people are sympathetic to an elderly person rattling around in a property with a couple of extra bedrooms because 'its been their home for years'.

However, that same elderly person may have repeatedly applied and moved into different social housing properties as they had more children.

So they are happy to regard their previous homes as interim and not suitable for their household (because its too small) but then retain the one that's grossly under-occupied as their forever home (despite it being too big).

There's no reciprocity in the system - a tenant can trade up because of overcrowding regulations in housing law but there's no mutual obligation for them to trade down when their children leave home.

Then they moan because their children are finding it tough to secure social housing.

RichTeaBiscuits

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

As it only applies to new tenants, it won't make much difference in the short to medium term.

I bet it will also apply to existing council tenants, in unfortunate change of circumstances, should they need to be moved to another property because a brand new tenancy agreement must be signed with the new address on e.g. for health reason that a person must be moved to a ground floor or adapted accommodation, for safety reason such as moved away from a dangerous neighbour or house needing major repair etc