Channel 4 tonight

molerat

ukcarper wrote: »

I wasn’t particularly impressed admittedly it’s a waste, but too much glossed over and figures didn’t seem right i.e. over £200k to build 4 bed house.

Or "half that" to refurbish one. How do those on "homes under the hammer" manage to do it on £20k - £50k ?

ukcarper

molerat wrote: »

Or "half that" to refurbish one. How do those on "homes under the hammer" manage to do it on £20k - £50k ?

Plenty of new 4beds in Birmingham for less that £200k those builders must be generous.

brit1234

A large part of my degree apart from the civil engineering side was development. I saw many examples in the developing world where the most effective use of money was to improve existing housing rather than build new housing. I studied how shanty town made huge improvements with little cost, such as setting sanitation networks with electricity. Giving families especially women access to cheap loans for home improvements.

The Austrian school of economics teaches it is far more efficient to improve existing housing rather than knock it down and build new. The reason for this is previous work and materials cost money. By knocking it down you have lost these valuable previous resources. I believe this second program was spot on.

The labour plan to knock down housing and replace it with new housing was partly aimed at raising house prices in an area. We now with hindsight can clearly link higher house prices to the international economic meltdown we have had.

An important lesson to learn is the less people pay on mortgages and rents the more money that can go into our economy on other things stimulating jobs.

gailey_2

Both programmes annoyed me a bit

1st one -landlords from hell exposed

councils breaking the law.
Those b and bs were shocking , unsafe and crawling with cockroaches.
The council did 10min inspections and rarly followed up on any work that needed to be done

The dorset council refering that criminal buy to let landlord who had small empire with substandard properties and relied mostly on benefit claimants as they had no other choice.

Im no socialist but my idea is

any private landlord receiving rent through housing benefit should be inspected to make sure its up to same level that social housing landlords have to meet!

2nd programme

I love george hes always so happy, smiley and exitable.

Reason why councils wont allow even if c4 paid half is if he suceeded he proved a few councils wrong.

Annoying woman in liverpool people dont want to live in these type properties as they too small.

Im not sure any ha or council actually build 4-5bed houses anyway hence why you see scandel of familiues having mansions in notting hill.

Im sure a lot of people on the list would welcome

a safe , good standard house -reasonable rent despite it being smaller they be made up.

They forget its not only families looking for houses.
A family with 1-2kids would quite happily manage in that type of house.

felt sorry for people living next door empty homes.

The london bit being done up for olympics made me chuckle .

I guess I just knew a few of you would focus on that woman and her family -dont think she was best example but it did help both parties.
Did wish the fat woman would stop sobbing.
unsure why housing affected her course.

But where she was living should have been illegal with those electrics.
Her newly done uup house was better decorated and bigger than my privatly rented house and less than half the montly rent.
We pay our own rent and live with a falling part dated kitchen and avacado bathroom suite!

I think what hes trying to do is admirable with his petition but unsure its going to make a difference.

why?

well they all seem obsessed with new so land sold off to developers council pocket the money.
but new houses not as sturdy or large as some of the empty homes.
local building sites here are for high end executive houses and smaller estates not aimed at ftb.

how aboout asking developers for every new house they build they renovate one empty home seems fair swap! better than the pointless if you build a new estate least 10-100homes as to be affordable hardly puts dent in figures.

Fail to see how selling off council homes to build one brand new ha house helps.
just keeps figures static does not grow amount of properties availiable seems daft!

Think his point that we need something to solve the problem if theres no money we need a new solution.

I still think mass building modern prefabs be good idea.

What I did rate big society and all that is getting the family involved in renovating their own home getting them personally to do some of the graft might mean they will respect their new home.

I say this as during 90,s my aunt lost her home.
she moved into newly build ha estate looked lovley for like a month.
moved after a year as nothing but trouble, wrecked houses and burnt out cars.
The idea of building personal responsibity for where they live just like to work experience for jsa is good thing!

We have to start looking after needs of all.
that sometimes its a home not just a ruthless profit making schem or pension!
The sytems far too skewed towards property owners!

Lastly we paying extornionate rates in housing benefit and getting ripped off.
We need to forsee everyones getting value for money housing benefit has inflated private rentals over the years.Think the cuts in housing allowance either live from jan or april 2013.

I despair of uk at times really do!

Buy_It_Now

brit1234 wrote: »

The Austrian school of economics teaches it is far more efficient to improve existing housing rather than knock it down and build new. The reason for this is previous work and materials cost money. By knocking it down you have lost these valuable previous resources. I believe this second program was spot on.

This is the stupidest thing i've read all day....the "Economies of Scale" will ALWAYS make new builds cheaper than repairing old whacked out housing. And new technical advancements will make the new homes more energy and water efficient.

John_Pierpoint

Fly tipping?

Pobby

Buy_It_Now wrote: »

This is the stupidest thing i've read all day....the "Economies of Scale" will ALWAYS make new builds cheaper than repairing old whacked out housing. And new technical advancements will make the new homes more energy and water efficient.

Are you sure about this? A lot of the houses featured, I think, for £20k would be stunning. Or maybe a one bed new build down our way for many times more than that amount.

Running_Horse

Graham_Devon wrote: »

9.00pm - The great British Property Scandal
Two million familes are on the UK housing list, but there are a million empty homes in Britain. George Clarke tries to find out why and to get some families in homes for Christmas.

I know someone always makes this point in this kind of programme, and it's probably a bit naff...but...that woman carrying a lamp around her house and plugging it in the hallway as she goes because of the dodgy electrics; how does her son power the flat screen TV in his room? Just asking like.

John_Pierpoint

New build is 20% subsidised by the VAT system as it is zero rated, while repairs are (generally speaking) fully taxed at 20%.

Repairs are difficult to cost - just watch any makeover programme on the TV for examples, people get fired for going over budget so play safe and clear whole neighbourhoods.

As well as financial aspects there should be a carbon budget for every proposal.

Flight2quality

Over a MILLION empty homes that they know about, if everyone reported empties it could be millions more. I know of a few empty flats and houses round my way. Not to mention all the empty commercial buildings that could be turned into residential now without the need for planning.

The answer is to keep building new homes as planned but AS WELL keep getting people into all the empty buildings commercial as well as residential.

Hope most of this can happen before property prices correct down to where they should be, but then they may over shoot on the way down.