Private landlords cash in on housing scandal

purch

Graham_Devon wrote: »

why is it better for the government to rent houses in place of owning social housing?

What is better is what is most efficient and cost effective.

What is needed is a better supply of rental property with secure tenancies.

If you want to interfere with the way these properties are priced then you are left with deciding who you want to set the price and how.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

You've taken what I said, applied your own version of what I said and then come up with a problem....again.

Who said anything about giving the houses away?

I did. That's what will happen. You live in a strange world where apparently lessons are learnt from past mistakes.

You may as well cut out the middle man, fund the builders to build a load of houses and just give them away.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I'm not talking about building a handful either., I'm talking 10's of thousands, hundreds of thousands. We face a shortage of a million homes. That sort of project would provide a massive amount of jobs and growth. This, is proven in history.

Housing completions in 2013 will end up around 110,000. Some taxpayer money will have gone into those but nothing like the £11bn cost price if the taxpayer had taken all the risk.

That's 10% of the total deficit.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

You can find numerous problems with this, but you have also stated lots of times than buying is better than renting. Apart from the fact this would reduce the value of your houses, why is it better for the government to rent houses in place of owning social housing?

IMO buying is better than renting but ultimately I think government should be governing rather than wasting time being the UK's biggest and most inefficient landlord.

There's no point waffling on about the 'pro-HPI brigade' either because you're arguments are entirely inconsistent with your position on the deficit and borrowing.

grizzly1911

purch wrote: »

What is better is what is most efficient and cost effective.

What is needed is a better supply of rental property with secure tenancies.

If you want to interfere with the way these properties are priced then you are left with deciding who you want to set the price and how.

If the properties are to be retained in "social" control and not released for sale then the affect would be limited to gradually removing rental demand.

As you say what is better is the most efficient and cost effective.

On the basis that the private sector never has and is unlikely to build sufficient properties on their own and there is a hard core growing demand private rents are only going one way.

Loughton_Monkey

Graham_Devon wrote: »

.....We own the asset, we don't have to therefore hand over ever increasing monthly amounts of housing benefits. We can run them at cost, or what you call a "subsidy". This will, over time, cost a lot less than spending ever increasing amounts of housing benefits.

Excellent idea, Graham. If a council owns the property, it cannot fail to run them at a cost of.... er.... whatever it costs.....

But 'what it costs' is probably about 6 times what it costs for a "normal" landlord if this bunch of muppets is anything to go by....

Social housing repair workers at a cash-strapped council have received a staggering £3.7million in bonuses in less than two years, it has been revealed.

An investigation has been launched after Homes for Haringey staff at Haringey Council in north London were found to have pocketed the astonishing amount, despite huge budget cuts.

One employee in the Labour-run authority's social housing arm's repairs department received a bonus of £54,292 for work carried out between April 2012 and March this year.

This was on top of a basic salary of between £25,970 and £28,068 a year, according to figures obtained by local newspaper the Ham & High.

During the last financial year, repairs staff took home £2,626,534 - a year in which Haringey repairs service (HRS) smashed its budget by an incredible £1.53million.

Several staff have now been suspended as the inquiry into the 'level of earnings for some operatives' is carried out, a council source said.

...

Cllr Wilson said: 'I am very concerned that bonuses paid to repairs staff have soared to more than £2million - whilst at the same time many local council tenants and leaseholders are tightening their belts and struggling to make ends meet.

'I have received many complaints from residents about housing repairs not being done promptly or correctly so I am very surprised that such high bonuses have been paid.

'This is public money that should have gone on housing services for local people.'

Homes for Haringey manages about 20,000 houses for the council.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2432926/Haringey-council-social-housing-repair-workers-receive-3-7MILLION-bonuses-despite-huge-budget-cuts.html

Local Councils, with their highly paid, final salary pensioned employees are , I am afraid, never noted for their efficiency or low costs. Look up the Edinburgh scandal.

Whelk stalls and breweries spring to mind....

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

If the properties are to be retained in "social" control and not released for sale then the affect would be limited to gradually removing rental demand.

As you say what is better is the most efficient and cost effective.

On the basis that the private sector never has and is unlikely to build sufficient properties on their own and there is a hard core growing demand private rents are only going one way.

pre war the private sector built to meet the demand

the private sector, post war, has never been allowed to build to meet the demand due to planning restrictions etc.

the public sector has never built to meet the demand

the future can be changed

JencParker

It doesn't have to be council owned - housing associations are non-profit and provide the same accommodation. My council has not owned any council houses/flats for many years but there is housing association property. However, I was horrified to hear that you could buy your housing association property with right to buy. I don't think this should be allowed.

JencParker

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Good!

So now will you agree with the points that the majority are making, and agree that the traditional provision of social housing is wrong, because it contravenes the principles of providing subsidies only to those who need them?

No, I don't agree that provision of social housing is wrong, whether that be provided by council or housing association. Simply that it should go to those who need it. It shouldn't be too difficult to do, we already have a lot of assessment criteria in place for those who claim any of the different benefits.

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Local Councils, I am afraid, and the complexity of the country, have moved on. If you really believe that local councils should start recruiting hundreds and thousands of road menders, road builders, house builders, house maintenance people..... so that they can build roads and houses at "cost price" [i.e. say 10% below what the professional profit making road and construction companies charge] then you and I live on a different planet.

We don't have the money to do this anyway.

So in the real world, councils must pay a profit making company otherwise they would pay more. That's not 'capitalism', it's effective use of public money.

Only in the short term and the problems we have now are due to short term policies in order to gain votes.