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arrears have increased by 340% following the housing benefit cuts
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bulccp05laer wrote: »I thought I did prove it. But no one can specifically quantify how much high housing benefit payments have pushed up the property market. Before the caps came in there were families in London, one particular large family from Somalia getting £4000 per week housing benefit to live in a nice area in London. There were many other families with lots of kids getting £2000 or £3000 per WEEK, not per month per week.
Are you seriously suggesting that this did not push up average rents? And if the government was not paying these high weekly rates for poor families to live in nice properties then rents would still have gone up by the amount they did regardless?
The problem now is the caps on benefit mean these families have to move to cheaper areas. Are you seriously trying to tell me there are other working families ready to pay £4000 per week out of earnings to replace the low income families relying on £4000 per week housing benefit?
Well if you are saying that then you are clearly wrong. Most of these large houses that used to be rented out to large families on housing benefit are still empty today, as it says in the article. The real effects of these cuts in April have not yet filtered through the system. Lots of these families are still in the homes they can no longer afford, which is where the 300% arrears comes from but they will be evicted sooner or later.
Where on Earth have those figures come from? The Daily Mail?0 -
Change to what though? That implies some kind of building response, doesn't it? It's hard to get good statistics on how many homes were built last year. The Guardian claims fewer than 100,000; the Builder and Engineer puts it at 110,000.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/24/affordable-new-homes-britain-future
http://www.builderandengineer.co.uk/feature/how-do-we-get-250000-homes-year)
As to the claim we need 250,000 homes a year for the next 25 years, what underpins that? If net migration runs at, say, 150,000 a year, then on average three people per house would equate to 50,000 new dwellings to meet demand. But where are the statistics that could underpin such calculations?
Then there is the birth rate. The latest available figures for 2011 show there were 723,913 births and 484,367 deaths. Even if no new homes were built and the only housing freed up was if a person died, all those extra people would still get accommodated.
Even Parliament are in on the act:
".....up to 290,500 additional homes may be needed in each year to 2031..."
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-for-the-new-parliament/social-reform/housing-supply-and-demand/
That seems to me to be so pie in the sky, it's laughable. 5.2 million homes to accommodate 7.2 million people (based on today's growth in population of around 400,000 people per annum)? They can't all be wanting to live on their own!
The bit you're missing is differences in housing consumption and population mix over time.
At one end of the spectrum we've had a big increase in single person households, divorced families needing two houses when they used to only need one, old people living longer, etc.
At the other end of the spectrum we've had more people living in HMO's and more young people staying at home with families for longer.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
If people can't afford the rent then it would seem that there is a lack of work : maybe better they migrate elsewhere where there are jobs.
Encourage them to move to say Edinburgh or London where the prospect of a slightly better paid job will pitch them against even more insurmountable housing costs?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »Encourage them to move to say Edinburgh or London where the prospect of a slightly better paid job will pitch them against even more insurmountable housing costs?
is everything awful in your world?
are no alternatives better than the status quo?
why would the job only be 'slightly ' better in London rather than Fife?
I can't think of a post where you have ever expressed a 'half full' attitude rather than a 'half empty'0 -
grizzly1911 wrote: »Encourage them to move to say Edinburgh or London where the prospect of a slightly better paid job will pitch them against even more insurmountable housing costs?
Edinburgh is easily commutable from most parts of fife.
No need to move.
And Fife housing is cheap.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
is everything awful in your world?
are no alternatives better than the status quo?
why would the job only be 'slightly ' better in London rather than Fife?
I can't think of a post where you have ever expressed a 'half full' attitude rather than a 'half empty'
Average price Fife? Average price London?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »Edinburgh is easily commutable from most parts of fife.
No need to move.
And Fife housing is cheap.
My error I don't know where Fife is apart from Scotland. Substitute Poole."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
rabbit_burrow wrote: »Where on Earth have those figures come from? The Daily Mail?
The story was all over the news a few years ago: £8,000 per month HB for £2m house0 -
StevenMarks wrote: »The story was all over the news a few years ago: £8,000 per month HB for £2m house
So it wasn't £4k a week then? Still £2k is a lot, but no need for exaggeration.
Also, the data is quite outdated now, it was from a few years ago and the rates have been reduced considerably since then, so the rents would have dropped by now if they had been increased due to HB.
I think it is more that case that HB was raised to cover the extortionate rental rates, which would've been caused by the landlords wanting to cover their mortgage payments & maintenance costs.0 -
rabbit_burrow wrote: »So it wasn't £4k a week then? Still £2k is a lot, but no need for exaggeration.
Also, the data is quite outdated now, it was from a few years ago and the rates have been reduced considerably since then, so the rents would have dropped by now if they had been increased due to HB.
I think it is more that case that HB was raised to cover the extortionate rental rates, which would've been caused by the landlords wanting to cover their mortgage payments & maintenance costs.
mortgage payments have dropped dramatically due to the very low interest rates0
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