Homeless figures treble amongst private rental tenants

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

However, to take the historical view, there was an explicit change in housing policy under Thatcher.

I fully understand the desire to change policy.
No problem with the concept, but they failed to look at the longer term viewpoint of housing future generations

Generali wrote: »

Once that ideological shift takes place fewer social homes are needed so it is completely reasonable, given that shift in viewpoint, for the houses currently tenanted to be sold.

As above, it doesn't consider the future needs

Generali wrote: »

Again taking the ideological view, if we want more owners rather than tenants changing landlords then it needs to be made simpler & cheaper for current tenants to buy where they're living already.

I have no problem with this concept.

Generali wrote: »

RTB effectively gave tenants a deposit that they wouldn't otherwise have had.

One would argue it gave them far more than just the deposit.
I understand they could get up to 60% off the valuation of the property.

Maybe there would not be such a furore if it was only 5% or 10%

antrobus

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

So, interestingly you cite Thatcher era as having built 550k properties but sold 970k (in England only)
A net loss of just over 420k social homes.

Blair era built less, but also sold off less under the RTB, contributing a nett loss of circa 350k.

Yes, but as is often stated, the sale of social homes doesn't mean that they disappeared into a black hole somewhere. Selling council houses simply changes the mix of housing available, not the total housing that is available.

The point would be that the UK population increased by something like 800,000 in the 1980s, so building something like 550,000 social homes out of a total 2.175 million seems a reasonable result. Building something like 230,000 social homes out of a total 1.939 million when faced with a population growth of 2.4 million seems to be a trifle inadequate.

Which is I blame the Labour failure to build.

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

....Of course, there is the gap in between and we know that social housing decreased by circa 1.5 million since the 1980's......

Well I can dig out the numbers for Major, if you really want them.

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

.....BTL increased by circa 2 million over the same time period, hence an increase of 500k rentable homes, but of course with the population increasing 7.5 million again over the same period, there is still a chronic shortage of social / private rental properties.

A chronic shortage of properties would be the predictable result of a failure to build.

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

However, to take the historical view, there was an explicit change in housing policy under Thatcher.

From the Atlee Government onwards there was an ideological view that council housing should house all people. Not the people in the Cabinet of course but pretty much everyone else.

The ideological view was always was that council housing should house the working classes. That dates back to the days of the Salisbury government, just about when Mr Attlee was born. I believe that there may well have been some in the Labour Party who envisaged a future where everyone was obliged to live in state provided accomomdation, but I'm not convinced that was a view widely held in the country as a whole.

Generali wrote: »

...The Thatcher Governments had an alternate view which was that the majority of people should own their own houses as part of the 'property owning democracy'. People who owned their home rather than having it cheaply rented to them by the state had no financial stake in their community and so would tend not to do the things that would make their community a better place to live.....

Well, Thatcher certainly liked the idea of a 'property owning democracy', and the RTB was part and parcel of that notion.

Generali wrote: »

..Once that ideological shift takes place fewer social homes are needed so it is completely reasonable, given that shift in viewpoint, for the houses currently tenanted to be sold. .....

What I think is more significant is the ideological shift involved in the adoption of residualism (as I believe it is known), i.e. the notion that the purpose of council housing isn't to house the working classes, it's to house poor people who can't afford the alternative.

Sanne

I haven't read all the posts but we were nearly (luckily not fully) in the situation as described. Had been renting, landlord was selling, notice was served.
We looked in a relatively large area but half of it was a no-go due to too high rents (Brighton/Hove) and a bit further out all flats were let pretty quickly.
Took a week off work to actually have a chance to check the internet in the morning, make appointments and then view places before they went. A good part of them required a UK home owner guarantor - we are both working full time, have a history of renting with excellent references and one income alone would have been enough to pay the rent (based on their requirements for minimum income).

We did find somewhere but the whole thing cost us dearly...

... a week holiday
... a landlord who wanted us in asap, i.e. an overlap in rent payments of nearly one month (= £700)
... finding a deposit of £1.6k two months before getting the old one back - this had to be paid in cash to the agency so couldn't even use a credit card
... £500 in fees - again, in cash
... money for the move itself (man with a van etc.)
... money for some new (second-hand) furniture as the old one didn't fit in
... £100 more in rent a month

We are lucky in so far as that we've had savings to cover the costs but it adds up seeing that this hasn't happened for the first time.

We are now fortunate to live somewhere where the landlord doesn't want to sell so we can probably stay for as long as we want to - though we obviously don't have any security.

Renting works in other countries, with more rights for tenants, but in the UK there's just not enough done to make the privately rented market attractive and a real alternative to home ownership. (I wouldn't buy a property in, say, Germany, where renting is more common, accepted and secure, with real freedom to decorate the place the way you want to etc.)

CLAPTON

Sanne wrote: »

I haven't read all the posts but we were nearly (luckily not fully) in the situation as described. Had been renting, landlord was selling, notice was served.
We looked in a relatively large area but half of it was a no-go due to too high rents (Brighton/Hove) and a bit further out all flats were let pretty quickly.
Took a week off work to actually have a chance to check the internet in the morning, make appointments and then view places before they went. A good part of them required a UK home owner guarantor - we are both working full time, have a history of renting with excellent references and one income alone would have been enough to pay the rent (based on their requirements for minimum income).

We did find somewhere but the whole thing cost us dearly...

... a week holiday
... a landlord who wanted us in asap, i.e. an overlap in rent payments of nearly one month (= £700)
... finding a deposit of £1.6k two months before getting the old one back - this had to be paid in cash to the agency so couldn't even use a credit card
... £500 in fees - again, in cash
... money for the move itself (man with a van etc.)
... money for some new (second-hand) furniture as the old one didn't fit in
... £100 more in rent a month

We are lucky in so far as that we've had savings to cover the costs but it adds up seeing that this hasn't happened for the first time.

We are now fortunate to live somewhere where the landlord doesn't want to sell so we can probably stay for as long as we want to - though we obviously don't have any security.

Renting works in other countries, with more rights for tenants, but in the UK there's just not enough done to make the privately rented market attractive and a real alternative to home ownership. (I wouldn't buy a property in, say, Germany, where renting is more common, accepted and secure, with real freedom to decorate the place the way you want to etc.)

there are more properties in Germany

have you rented in Germany?

Sanne

Yes, I have family over there who are renting.
My grandmother has been in the same flat since 1969. My aunt since 1975. My great aunt since the mid-sixties. All could make their places their own. All landlord wouldn't be able to just kick them out at their will. That's all privately rented, not through housing associations.

My grandmother doesn't have a large pension herself (been a house wife for large parts of her life)+ a widower's pension at 60% of what my grandfather would have got and doesn't have problems paying the rent.
My mother-in-law is renting in the UK and still working full time in her late sixties, despite having worked all her life and having a couple of private pensions, one of them NHS.

Yes, I fully agree, there's more properties - I often think it's because everything is more spread across the country while in the UK everything seems to be centred around London.

antrobus

Sanne wrote: »

.....Renting works in other countries, with more rights for tenants, but in the UK there's just not enough done to make the privately rented market attractive and a real alternative to home ownership. (I wouldn't buy a property in, say, Germany, where renting is more common, accepted and secure, with real freedom to decorate the place the way you want to etc.)

Renting is far more prevalent under the German model certainly, largely because of the tax incentives once made available to German landlords. Since home ownership in the UK is below the European average, I'm not that certain that the privately rented market attractive here in the UK is necessarily malfunctioning.

CLAPTON

Sanne wrote: »

Yes, I have family over there who are renting.
My grandmother has been in the same flat since 1969. My aunt since 1975. My great aunt since the mid-sixties. All could make their places their own. All landlord wouldn't be able to just kick them out at their will. That's all privately rented, not through housing associations.

My grandmother doesn't have a large pension herself (been a house wife for large parts of her life)+ a widower's pension at 60% of what my grandfather would have got and doesn't have problems paying the rent.
My mother-in-law is renting in the UK and still working full time in her late sixties, despite having worked all her life and having a couple of private pensions, one of them NHS.

Yes, I fully agree, there's more properties - I often think it's because everything is more spread across the country while in the UK everything seems to be centred around London.

My understanding of the German market is limited to odd articles I've read, but it seems very different to the UK

- there is in total more housing
- there are considerable upfront costs to starting a rental
- there are legal obligations for the tenant to return the property in the state they started with
- a landlord can kick tenants out if he needs the property for himself or a family member (widely abused)
- there is a much lower level of owner occupations so far more people want to rent long term

- how does German deal with short term renting : like people leaving home for the first time etc


I'm sure why the London effect is relevant to the UK: does that make renting outside London better or worse than other countries.

antrobus

CLAPTON wrote: »

My understanding of the German market is limited to odd articles I've read, but it seems very different to the UK....

The main difference appears to be that they have too much housing and are therefore obliged to knock a lot of it down.

In the first years of the new millennium, the demolition rate in eastern Germany increased to 0.5% of the existing stock per year. This rate may need to increase further over the next 40 years to keep the vacancy rate below an average of 15%, which could mean 20–25% in multiple-dwelling units. With 25 years' delay, western Germany will enter a similar development stream also due to population shrinkage.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09613210903166739#.U67MzbEzR2A

Sanne

CLAPTON wrote: »

My understanding of the German market is limited to odd articles I've read, but it seems very different to the UK

- there is in total more housing
- there are considerable upfront costs to starting a rental
- there are legal obligations for the tenant to return the property in the state they started with
- a landlord can kick tenants out if he needs the property for himself or a family member (widely abused)
- there is a much lower level of owner occupations so far more people want to rent long term

- how does German deal with short term renting : like people leaving home for the first time etc


I'm sure why the London effect is relevant to the UK: does that make renting outside London better or worse than other countries.

Not sure if you mean that a landlord can kick the tenant out for own use in Germany or the UK - yes, they can in Germany but need to give a lot of notice in certain cases (which depends on how long the tenant lived in the property and goes up to noise months). There are also certain tenant interests which are protected - in those cases courts often get involved but they are there. Generally it's quite regulated in which cases the landlord can kick you out to use the property themselves.

In terms of short term lets - not an issue as there generally aren't any long term or fixed contracts, nearly all are rolling so you can move whenever you want giving the right notice of course.