The silver bullet to fix the housing market

antrobus

cells wrote: »

falling population doesn't mean you need fewer homes. In the 1970s for 4 years the population fell. Homes were not knocked down....

It does in Germany, where they are indeed, knocking them down. Depends on how big a population fall you're talking about, and what else is happening.

cells wrote: »

...Looking years down the road the occupancy rate may need to fall as low as 1.8...

The "occupancy rate" (I assume you mean household size) is driven by social factors over which you have no control. If two people want to live together in the same household there's not a lot you can do to stop them. If you're relying on a fall in household size to fill up properties you're likely going to end up with a lot of empty properties that will eventually get knocked down.

Cornucopia

My (temporary eco-village) reasoning is more about the NIMBY objections.

Keeping things small, and the notional promise of return to green space at some point in the future are aimed squarely at those concerns. I accept the point about building new infrastructure, however, there is no getting away from that with any form of new building.

I'd also be interested in whether a short-term form of tenure could be introduced (say a 25-year Government lease of the land), which in conjunction with less permanent, less desirable pre-fabricated building might help to suppress the price/rent of these properties. (Land is one of the major elements of the cost of property, especially in the South East).

A modest eco-house might cost £35-50k in materials, a similar amount in construction, and whatever the costs of land and input into new infrastructure might be. This has the potential to offer very affordable housing. As long as the form of tenure was sufficiently disadvantageous compared to the norm (or it was built solely for rent), it needn't affect the overall housing market greatly.

CLAPTON

Cornucopia wrote: »

My (temporary eco-village) reasoning is more about the NIMBY objections.

Keeping things small, and the notional promise of return to green space at some point in the future are aimed squarely at those concerns. I accept the point about building new infrastructure, however, there is no getting away from that with any form of new building.

I'd also be interested in whether a short-term form of tenure could be introduced (say a 25-year Government lease of the land), which in conjunction with less permanent, less desirable pre-fabricated building might help to suppress the price/rent of these properties. (Land is one of the major elements of the cost of property, especially in the South East).

I find it difficult to image that a NIMBY would look kindly on the idea of his back garden being blighted for 'only' 25 years.

plus there is the problem of funding properties that will cease to exist in 25 years

plus the wast of infrastructure

plus who will want pay to maintain the building/infrastructure once (say ) 15 years has gone by.

what businesses will want to move there in the declining years

Cornucopia

I imagine this being used as an alternative to carving up green space for permanent conversion to housing - so NIMBY objections may well come down to this being the lesser of two evils.

I see it as perhaps taking a single field adjacent to an existing village and putting up an eco-village of maybe 40-50 houses there. Infrastructure, shops, etc., are already there, ready in most cases to be tapped into. Indeed local services might benefit from a small influx of potential new customers.

Rinse and repeat across the South-east, to alleviate the housing shortage, and provide more affordable homes.

I suspect that it would work best as a build-to-let project. That avoids the need for cumbersome tenure issues, and means that the terms of rental and return of the land could be built in to the planning consent. (Say, no more than 75% of market rent over the life of the project - perhaps tailing off to 50% as the project reaches end of life). The Landlord is then responsible for upkeep during the life of the project, and is bound by existing regulation on maintenance.

The advantage to the Landlord would be: access to much cheaper land than on the open market, tenancies potentially underwritten by the Local Authority or Housing Association, no shortage of applicants for rents below market price, and a predictable return not dependent on capital growth in the open market.

If demand still exists at the end of the life of the project, it could potentially be extended, or moved to another local site (ie. not reneging on the original promise to return the greenfield site).

A picture paints 1000 words...

cells

antrobus wrote: »

It does in Germany, where they are indeed, knocking them down. Depends on how big a population fall you're talking about, and what else is happening.

The "occupancy rate" (I assume you mean household size) is driven by social factors over which you have no control. If two people want to live together in the same household there's not a lot you can do to stop them. If you're relying on a fall in household size to fill up properties you're likely going to end up with a lot of empty properties that will eventually get knocked down.

Germany is still adding net homes even though their population is falling. That is to say their ocunapncy rate is falling

They may well be knocking down homes, just as a lot of poor high rise flats in london were knocked down in the 90s, but they are building more on top of that elsewhere.

also Germany has a lot more homes tha us. They have an average occupancy rate below 2 now vs closer to 2.35 in the UK so there is quite a lot of room for a fall in occupancy rate in the uk. France is inbetween the two at around 2.15 spain is below 2. Ireland is 2.3........effectively the uk has the lowest number of homes per capota and also the smallest all evidence for a shortage.


I know I nor you have any control over national occupancy rate but I also know that for a hundred years the occupancy rate has been falling and that the uk rate is the highest amongst comparable EU nations eg france germany Spain so that suggests there is room for it to fall and it lolely wood (hoisiyng stats constraints limiting this ignored)

cells

Cornucopia wrote: »

My (temporary eco-village) reasoning is more about the NIMBY objections.

Keeping things small, and the notional promise of return to green space at some point in the future are aimed squarely at those concerns. I accept the point about building new infrastructure, however, there is no getting away from that with any form of new building.

I'd also be interested in whether a short-term form of tenure could be introduced (say a 25-year Government lease of the land), which in conjunction with less permanent, less desirable pre-fabricated building might help to suppress the price/rent of these properties. (Land is one of the major elements of the cost of property, especially in the South East).

A modest eco-house might cost £35-50k in materials, a similar amount in construction, and whatever the costs of land and input into new infrastructure might be. This has the potential to offer very affordable housing. As long as the form of tenure was sufficiently disadvantageous compared to the norm (or it was built solely for rent), it needn't affect the overall housing market greatly.

NIMBYS don't object to intensively farmed land being converted to homes and gardens they object to it being within five miles of them

Cornucopia

In the South East, it's always going to be within 5 miles of someone.

CLAPTON

Cornucopia wrote: »

In the South East, it's always going to be within 5 miles of someone.

indeed so

so you will still have all the NINBYS objecting
plus all the Greens who will be appalled at the planned obsolescence
plus the conservatives as it's a shocking waste of resources and the the social housing aspects
plus labour who will not like the idea of turfing people out of their homes in 25 years time
plus all rational people who won't really believe that the housing problem will be otherwise resolved in 25 years time

antrobus

cells wrote: »

Germany is still adding net homes even though their population is falling. That is to say their ocunapncy rate is falling...

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#.U7K3DbEzR2B

cells wrote: »

...They have an average occupancy rate below 2...

The average household size in Germany is two. The occupancy rate would be something different. A rate is normally a percentage for one thing.

cells wrote: »

..I know I nor you have any control over national occupancy rate but I also know that for a hundred years the occupancy rate has been falling...

Average household size has been stable in the UK over the past decade. It was 2.39 in 2002 and it was 2.39 in 2012.

http://www.generatorresearch.com/tekcarta/databank/households-average-household-size/

cells wrote: »

...... and that the uk rate is the highest amongst comparable EU nations eg france germany Spain .....

According to the source cited above the average household size in Italy is 2.50 and in Spain 2.68, both of which are higher than in the UK.

cells wrote: »

....so that suggests there is room for it to fall and it lolely wood (hoisiyng stats constraints limiting this ignored)

Of course there is room for it to fall. The point is that there nothing much you can do to make it fall. So basing any kind of policy on the statement that the average household size "may need to fall as low as 1.8" is nothing more than an exercise in arithmetic; household size may well remain at 2.39 and you end up with a lot of empty houses that will be demolished.

Although since most of the projections I've seen forecast that the UK population will increase - the ONS is going for 73 million by 2035 - I'm not sure why anyone would envisage a scenario where the average household size in the UK would need to fall in order to mop up surplus housing.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/npp/national-population-projections/2010-based-projections/sum-2010-based-national-population-projections.html

cells

antrobus wrote: »

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#.U7K3DbEzR2B



The average household size in Germany is two. The occupancy rate would be something different. A rate is normally a percentage for one thing.



Average household size has been stable in the UK over the past decade. It was 2.39 in 2002 and it was 2.39 in 2012.

http://www.generatorresearch.com/tekcarta/databank/households-average-household-size/



According to the source cited above the average household size in Italy is 2.50 and in Spain 2.68, both of which are higher than in the UK.



Of course there is room for it to fall. The point is that there nothing much you can do to make it fall. So basing any kind of policy on the statement that the average household size "may need to fall as low as 1.8" is nothing more than an exercise in arithmetic; household size may well remain at 2.39 and you end up with a lot of empty houses that will be demolished.

Although since most of the projections I've seen forecast that the UK population will increase - the ONS is going for 73 million by 2035 - I'm not sure why anyone would envisage a scenario where the average household size in the UK would need to fall in order to mop up surplus housing.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/npp/national-population-projections/2010-based-projections/sum-2010-based-national-population-projections.html

Call it what you want. Ocupancy rate. Population iver housing stock. For the uk it is about 64m people over 27.4m homes equals about 2.33 persons per house

and yes it hasn't fallen in the UK over the last decade as it did the 9 decades prior. It should have fallen which means more homes should have been built. Instead we know have far more kidaults living with mum far more house shares and far more people letting rooms to strangers and far more sheds wirh beds

I don't know about italy I've never checked but the spain figure is wrong or massively out of date. Their boom in housing builds meant the occupancy rate fell below 2 in spain.

most comparable nation is France. Very similar population gdp population growth immigration etc etc they build about 3x as manyanew homes and already have a lower occupancy rate (ie more homes)


Also I have no doubt they are knocking homes down in Germany bit that is mot the same as saying their housing stock is shrinking because it isn't. The knock some down and build more. Also its only recently the two halfs were unified so there has likely been more internal migration there possibly leadong to towns and villages of excess

whats clear is that if the UK is to have the same occupancy rate as france or germany we would need millions more homes