MSPs due to scrap council tenants' 'right to buy'

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Can you not figure out the difference?

One is a direct subsidy to one family to buy and OWN an asset.

The other is a subsidy (if you want to call it that) to house someone in an asset that the STATE owns and can use to help out many families.

It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

social housing tends to last a life time , say 50-60 years so is not that different from some-one being subsidy to buy a property.

As the property owner pays their own maintenance etc, there would probably be an overall saving for the taxpayers

Sky_

cells wrote: »

The government can just issue £100B more in gilts and buy 1 million homes with that. They would pay only around £1B a year in interest or just £1000 per house per year

Plus maintenance of the houses and all the other costs that go with renting properties out. Okay, there would be a reduction in housing benefit costs, but I'm not sure the sums would add up.

Good idea if it's really financially viable though.

cells

Sky_ wrote: »

Plus maintenance of the houses and albetween loler costs that go with renting properties out. Okay, there would be a reduction in housing benefit costs, but I'm not sure the sums would add up.

Good idea if it's really financially viable though.

Maintiannce costs are not gona make up the £9k difference between the interest on this vs the private rental bill.

plus its a fixed cost thos £1k interest whereas rents increase woth GDP.

Likewise the £100B investment is not lost as the houses will still be standing in fifty years time (and probably be worth a lot more than 100B)

Sky_

CLAPTON wrote: »

social housing tends to last a life time , say 50-60 years so is not that different from some-one being subsidy to buy a property.

As the property owner pays their own maintenance etc, there would probably be an overall saving for the taxpayers

Bit like my neighbour saying 'I'll buy your car for 50% of it's value. Over the next 5 years it will be cheaper for you than paying to buy fuel and maintain it'.

True in one sense, but rather ignores the fact that I still need to pay for transport to get to work etc. Just as councils still need to pay to house those people who could have lived in the SH houses, had they not been sold off.

CLAPTON

Sky_ wrote: »

Bit like my neighbour saying 'I'll buy your car for 50% of it's value. Over the next 5 years it will be cheaper for you than paying to buy fuel and maintain it'.

True in one sense, but rather ignores the fact that I still need to pay for transport to get to work etc. Just as councils still need to pay to house those people who could have lived in the SH houses, had they not been sold off.

I'm afraid I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

N1AK

cells wrote: »

The government can just issue £100B more in gilts and buy 1 million homes with that. They would pay only around £1B a year in interest or just £1000 per house per year

No idea where you think the government is going to find £100,000,000,000 for 1% returns, or 1,000,000 in areas people actually need them for £100,000 each. I'm just going to assume you haven't even considered the inflationary effect it'd have on the housing market, demand for social housing and the costs to private tenants.

Put more succintly: It may not have sounded stupid before it came out of your mouth...

cells

Selling off council homes, just as the state buying provate homes and converting them to council homes doesn't change housing supply or demand situation so it doesn't help home people

its probably better to sell them from a supply point of view as social homes have the lowest occupancy rate of the three groups


IMO any council with more than 25% of the stock as social should have to sell them until they get to 25% or lower. In some parts of the country 50% of a council is social housing and it makes those areas ghettos

Below 25% there should be no need to sell them and certainly not at a discount

cells

N1AK wrote: »

No idea where you think the government is going to find £100,000,000,000 for 1% returns, or 1,000,000 in areas people actually need them for £100,000 each. I'm just going to assume you haven't even considered the inflationary effect it'd have on the housing market, demand for social housing and the costs to private tenants.

Put more succintly: It may not have sounded stupid before it came out of your mouth...

I don't think its a good idea

I was trying to make the ppint that if selling council homes and covering them to private was a bad idea then you can say buying private homes and turning them to council will be a good idea.

some people are just fixed at the idea thay selling council homes is bad so I was trying to rephrase it


anyway the government can borrow £100B quite easily its been doing more rhan that every year for the last few years. It can borrow short term for less than 1% and close to 0% for very short term. Even at 2% borrowing cost its still much cheaper for them.

Graham_Devon

CLAPTON wrote: »

social housing tends to last a life time , say 50-60 years so is not that different from some-one being subsidy to buy a property.

As the property owner pays their own maintenance etc, there would probably be an overall saving for the taxpayers

Hold on a second.

Firstly, over 50-60 years, how many families will that social home help? It's going to be more than one family, that much is pretty much guaranteed.

Secondly, the state owns the asset, therefore it has an asset worth . Even if that asset worth is simply the land it sits on. No "savings on maintenance" is going to make up for the total asset value.

Third, we need to acknowledge housing benefits. Housing benefits will A) be cheaper and be kept in the social "pot" as the government is in essence paying out housing benefit and taking it back. Sure, there is a build cost, but lie I say, we own the asset, so even the build cost isn't lost money.

Finally, you and others may be able to find issues with social housing and I do not try to pretend issues do not exist. No system is perfect and I don't pretend that such a social housing system would be.

However, on the whole, I believe there are far more issues with the system we currently have.

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Hold on a second.

Firstly, over 50-60 years, how many families will that social home help? It's going to be more than one family, that much is pretty much guaranteed.

Secondly, the state owns the asset, therefore it has an asset worth . Even if that asset worth is simply the land it sits on. No "savings on maintenance" is going to make up for the total asset value.

Third, we need to acknowledge housing benefits. Housing benefits will A) be cheaper and be kept in the social "pot" as the government is in essence paying out housing benefit and taking it back. Sure, there is a build cost, but lie I say, we own the asset, so even the build cost isn't lost money.

I am comparing a family living in social housing :
lets say they are 30 years old with a few children.

- if they stay as social tenants they will probably stay for their entire life which could be say 50-60 years during which time they will have cheap subsidised housing.
The house is then available for another person.

- if they buy and stay there then they will cease to be subsidised but the house will be sold off at a reduced market price.


I haven't actually done any calculations, either about the cash flow or the lifetime cost but the differences don't seem obviously that great.