Expensive council houses should be sold...

Rinoa

...and the proceeds used to build up to 170,000 new council houses every year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19311364

"Social housing tenants deserve a roof over their heads - but not one better than most people can afford, particularly as expensive social housing means less social housing and so longer waiting lists for most people in need."

Sounds reasonable to me.

wymondham

indeed, very sensible. The biggest council house should be a normal sized 3 bed semi. If your family is bigger than that then you share rooms.It should never be 'too' comfortable in social housing....

purch

Sounds reasonable to me.

If every sale is replaced by a new build.

If not, then it will be another disaster.

FTBFun

Nice quote from the National Housing Federation:

But the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, says many towns would be "cleansed" of "hardworking people who can't afford to pay high prices".

I like the use of "many" (as that's a completely meaningless platitude) and "cleansed" (alludes to ethnic cleansing, which is obviously ridiculous), but what it's highlighting is the entitlement culture of the state paying for you to live in a decent house which I'm hoping this kind of policy would reverse.

Wookster

purch wrote: »

If every sale is replaced by a new build.

If not, then it will be another disaster.

Can someone tell me why council tenants have a right to buy property at deeply discounted rates? This sounds like bribing the electorate.

Surely this is what was supposed to be the case that sold council houses were replaced? It is a true failure of several governments that this hasn't happened.

purch

Wookster wrote: »

Can someone tell me why council tenants have a right to buy property at deeply discounted rates?

I don't think they should be able to, nor should they have been allowed to do so in the past.

The overly large discounts, and non replacement of property sold that were the biggest mistakes of the Thatcher governments, and one of the biggest causes of the housing shortages now faced.

ukcarper

The average house price in Surrey is £300k I don't think many council houses would be worth more than that especially when you consider the average semi is £280k and most ex council houses sell for £250k.

In areas where council houses are needed I can't see it making much difference unless the council have a source of cheap land they are prepared to use.

Graham_Devon

I would LOVE the building of houses to happen as a result of selling off expensive stock.

However, it's all "you could build 170,000 a year".

All the talk is of "could". It's not "will". So basically all that will happen is that the expensive housing will get sold and nothing more will happen.

With these things, we need to have proper legal, obligatory framework in place before it being given the go ahead....otherwise as we have seen, time after time, the "we could do this" never actually happens.

So in this case, the saying "we could build 170,000 houses" will stay as a "well, we could". It's highly unlikely they will.

I could go skydiving today. I'm not going to.

Generali

ukcarper wrote: »

In areas where council houses are needed I can't see it making much difference unless the council have a source of cheap land they are prepared to use.

As the council grant planning permission they can always buy cheap land and then grant themselves permission to build on it.

Loughton_Monkey

Generali wrote: »

As the council grant planning permission they can always buy cheap land and then grant themselves permission to build on it.

This is not always possible.

Firstly, such land must be owned by (a) A relative of a councillor, (b) A business associate of a councillor, (c) a shady developer who wishes a councillor's wife to 'join the board'.....

Secondly, because of the above, it will not be "cheap".

Large Gin & Tonics all round.......

chewmylegoff

the sums work out as follows:

28,500 houses a year could be sold for £193,000 / house or £5.5 billion (£4.5 billion) after repayment of debt.

this could be used to build 80,000 - 170,000 houses a year?

so it apparently will only cost £26,500 - £56,250 to build each house.

i suppose that the govt / local councils could build on land that they already own, which would obviously keep the price down, but it seems unlikely that they will be able to build houses at that cost.

for a start, the govt has no supporting apparatus to just start building houses, so it would just have to contract the building to a house building company. given that bovis have published accounts today showing that they make an average gross profit of £32,880 per home, i cannot really see anyone agreeing to build houses for the govt at a (national average) cost of £56,250 per house, let alone £26,500.

also any stats should factor in what the govt would lose by not selling the land on the open market.