arrears have increased by 340% following the housing benefit cuts

IveSeenTheLight

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I doubt you, I or many poster here would - because we can afford to make choices.

The BBC article I linked to suggest that there are already many that simply don't have a choice. They don't have many things on your list to actually choose not to have.

I am not on about the ludicrous woman who doesn't want to charge her employed children for the room.

I am not sure comparing your position and market with the bottom end social sector allows comparisons to be made.

There are always the exceptions to the rule, however being stereotypical for a moment, how many times do we see people from the bottom end of the market smoking, drinking, latest trainers, cell phones, etc etc etc.

N1AK

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

There are always the exceptions to the rule, however being stereotypical for a moment, how many times do we see people from the bottom end of the market smoking, drinking, latest trainers, cell phones, etc etc etc.

Plenty, but that doesn't make the majority of benefit claimants !!!!less. Plenty of old people are racist, plenty of white people are fat and plenty men binge drink; none of those things being true should define those groups though.

One of the biggest issues with the current governments attempts to control welfare is that they often cause considerable collateral damage. Ending the 'spare room subsidy' makes sense but taking money off people who would happily accept a smaller property but aren't able to get one doesn't.

bulccp05laer

N1AK wrote: »

Government spending isn't infinite and doesn't come from nowhere. The more spent on housing benefit the less spent on healthcare, transport, schools etc or the more tax required.

Housing benefit, and council housing generally, has been a joke for too long with many, though by no means all, claimants getting far more than they need. Yes the current changes are also affecting some people unfairly (in my opinion) but that's to be expected when making such large changes so quickly.

Graham highlighted a great example: The mum who was used as a 'victim' case who wasn't charging a working adult son any rent; but was struggling to cover the costs of her 3 bed house. Cry me a f'ing river.

It has been a joke for too long. But it worked, high housing benefit payments successfully pushed up rents and with them the property market.

It is obvious that all those large families with more kids than years working between them, who lived in nice areas getting £4000per week pushed and held up the property market.

IveSeenTheLight

bulccp05laer wrote: »

It has been a joke for too long. But it worked, high housing benefit payments successfully pushed up rents and with them the property market.

It is obvious that all those large families with more kids than years working between them, who lived in nice areas getting £4000per week pushed and held up the property market.

Similarly as I asked elsewhere, can you quantify specifically how much rents have increased because of HB?

Delara

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Strange statement when it can be shown that mortgage repayments are historically low as a percentage of earnings.

That is just because of the historically low interest rates. When things go back to normal mortgage repayments are going to to be historically high as a percentage of earnings.

IveSeenTheLight

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Similarly as I asked elsewhere, can you quantify specifically how much rents have increased because of HB?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/housing-network/poll/2012/mar/06/poll-housing-benefit-rent-increase

Has housing benefit pushed up private rent?
Is housing benefit responsible for the increases in private sector rent, or is it a scapegoat for the welfare reform bill?

Is housing benefit responsible for driving private sector rent up?
Jenny Jones's ten myths about the private rented sector article for the housing network provoked quite a discussion earlier this week, with particular attention drawn to her assertion about the effect of housing benefit on private rent.

Ministers have tried to turn private renters against each other by suggesting that housing benefits are driving rents up. This is total myth. Most recently, the prime minister claimed rents were falling as a result of the caps introduced in April 2011. But landlords and housing experts dismissed this claim, and a snap survey found that only one in 11 councils asked had negotiated lower rents as a result of the reforms.

To which @bromey responded:

That is not a myth. What do you think would happen if the government decided to stop paying any housing benefit? Do you think landlords would chuck the occupants onto the streets and leave their properties empty? Do you think they would all be bought as second homes? Of course they wouldn't. Rents would collapse.

The idea that housing benefit and local housing allowance (LHA) are contributing to the increases in private sector rents has been used to support the government's controversial welfare reform bill, which proposes capped benefits for social housing tenants.

But this argument has been rejected by the Chartered Institute of Housing. Chief executive Grainia Long said: "We have shown that LHA does not push up rents and so it cannot be used to bring them down again. It is imperative that the government does all it can to tackle the high and unaffordable rents currently seen in the private rented sector, but this is not the way to do it and will cause more hardship in the process."

Are housing benefits really pushing up rent prices in the private sector? Or is it a myth designed to increase support for welfare reform?

Are landlords increasing rents in order to get more money out of the system? Or does housing benefit simply reflect market rates, rather than distort them?

IveSeenTheLight

Delara wrote: »

That is just because of the historically low interest rates.

Rates have been low for four years now, it is possible that we could have low rates for another decade or more.

don't delay in capitalising on the low rates

Delara wrote: »

When things go back to normal mortgage repayments are going to to be historically high as a percentage of earnings.

When will rates be back to the previous normal?

At present prices are still lower than they were in 2007, so your statement does not hold true.

You'd need rates to be above the previous normal rate for them to be historically high (p.s. do you realise how high they have been previously)

shortchanged_2

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Strange statement when it can be shown that mortgage repayments are historically low as a percentage of earnings.

Yes for now while interest rates are rock bottom. When interest rates do rise the picture will not be so rosy.

bulccp05laer

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Similarly as I asked elsewhere, can you quantify specifically how much rents have increased because of HB?

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.

IveSeenTheLight

shortchanged wrote: »

Yes for now while interest rates are rock bottom. When interest rates do rise the picture will not be so rosy.

Mortgage owners were able to afford payments when prices and rents were higher.

For many there has been rent inflation in the last 5 years.

In that time, they've been able to benefit from lower interest payments allowing many to overpay their mortgages significantly reducing their amortization period.

For many, this economic recession has financially saved them tens of thousands.