Government must do more on affordable housing

the_flying_pig

Mr._Pricklepants wrote: »

Everybody is a NIMBY to some degree, including you...

true of course but today's NIMBYism has got drastically out of hand.

in the mid 80s [so when i was a nipper] my family moved into a nearly newbuild [barratt] house that had been built in the very early 80s, on the very edge of town.

so it was, if you faced in the direction away from town, 'all fields round here'. very nice it was too, having those fields.

before so very long someone else came along [wimpey i think] and built some more houses in the fields. not entirely unexpected when you buy a house on the edge of a growing town.

obviously the new houses impaired our quality of life in some obvious ways [tho as it happened they also brought about some benefits, in particular the estate's shops & so on got a bit busier & consequently started to sell more stuff, stay open longer hours, & whatnot] but it just wouldn't have occured to my family to start squealing about it. the very idea would have struck any right minded person of the time as absurd. that mindset seems to have changed somehow for lots of people but needs to change back very quickly.

grizzly1911

'Bedroom tax' rules


Welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith has instructed officials to "look again" at how the "bedroom tax" will affect disabled people, the BBC has been told.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21541400


The issue of affordable housing is out of control it has been heading this direction for 30 years. Demand has been allowed to get out of control.

The Governement have got to retake control and start building in some format. It can't be left to the private sector to meet the need either though finance or building.

The bedroom tax is another good idea in theory but was never really thought through. There aren't enough freely available homes in the system to allow moves in it, in anything like the numbers required.

N1AK

ILW wrote: »

A tax on undeveloped land would solve the problem very quickly and discourage speculation.

I agree but I'd prefer a solution that didn't require yet more types of tax to track and administer. I'd have nothing against making planning permission last for a shorter period (or requiring considerable fees to extend it) which may achieve a similar goal.

The whole thing should be unnecessary though. If developers didn't think the property would be worth more in future they'd be more active in selling or building on it. As the government, politicians and the public in general all tend to talk about and want property prices to go up it encourages the developers to hold off and wait until then to use the land.

the_flying_pig

wotsthat wrote: »

...To be honest me arguing that lending is a problem and you arguing that land hoarding is a problem is a bit like arguing that the food was worse than the beds on the Titanic.

the problem is of course the lending binge of the middle part of the previous decade, which explains everything about both the current ability to lend [given today's exceptionally high prices] & land hoarding [given the even more exceptionally high prices that those land purchases were predicated on].

Graham_Devon

Well yer, thats another option.

If the government started building council homes again, does anyone think the builders would continue to strangle supply?

Course they wouldn't, they'd be building on the land they have, and probably quicker than the government could get their programme into action. Faced with the choice of having their demand go towards council housing, they'd build. If they didn't, the government would take their demand and the companies would simply cease.

wotsthat

Wookster wrote: »

Not to mention the price of land, planning restrictions or the price of houses.

See what I mean by myopic?

It's like a strawman festival here today.

I say lack of lending is related to lack of building. You say that's myopic.

I say that lack of lending isn't the only factor holding back the market. You say that's myopic.

Myopic is when you don't see something that's there. What's the version you've got where you see things you want to see rather than what's written in front of your eyes?

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

It's like a strawman festival here today.

I say lack of lending is related to lack of building. You say that's myopic.

I say that lack of lending isn't the only factor holding back the market. You say that's myopic.

Myopic is when you don't see something that's there. What's the version you've got where you see things you want to see rather than what's written in front of your eyes?

I'd say you've changed your tune, and have started to talk mor eabout building as the thread has gone on.

Before now, on this and another, you sighted lending as the only problem.

And that's good, thats what debate is all about. Hopefully explaining things and putting across another view. If others start accepting that view then that's brilliant.

wotsthat

the_flying_pig wrote: »

the problem is of course the lending binge of the middle part of the previous decade, which explains everything about both the current ability to lend [given today's exceptionally high prices] & land hoarding [given the even more exceptionally high prices that those land purchases were predicated on].

That's sort of what I'm getting at.

Me calling for more lending and Graham calling for release of building plots is futile in the scheme of things.

Lenders won't lend because they can't and builders won't release plots because they might have to write down the value of their assets. The other factor is that builders built the land banks with borrowed money compounding the problem.

As the government don't seem to be able to force lenders to lend and aren't about to start their own building company anytime soon they are somewhat stuck.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

As the government don't seem to be able to force lenders to lend and aren't about to start their own building company anytime soon they are somewhat stuck.

Woohoo....agreed!

The next issue is the amount of money the parties take from housebuilders in donations....

Add on councils too through what they call "infrastrucutre investment" in retrun for planning, but what the rest of us would describe as bribes.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I'd say you've changed your tune, and have started to talk mor eabout building as the thread has gone on.

Before now, on this and another, you sighted lending as the only problem.

And that's good, thats what debate is all about. Hopefully explaining things and putting across another view. If others start accepting that view then that's brilliant.

Sorry Graham you can't get your internet point that easily. I don't recall ever saying that lending is the only problem - if I did it was in error.

Happy to continue arguing about which is best - a white or blue Rolls-Royce when I won't get a loan for one and they won't produce in sufficient numbers to bring the price to a level you can afford.