Radio 4: Bricks and Bubbles

sennypijama

CLAPTON wrote: »

indeed so


but in general, with the higher the population growth would you expect house building growth to increase or decrease?

That would depend on whether the decline in Housebuilding was due to a surplus.

CLAPTON

sennypijama wrote: »

That would depend on whether the decline in Housebuilding was due to a surplus.

how is that ?


if there was a surplus, why would there be any building at all?

sennypijama

CLAPTON wrote: »

how is that ?


if there was a surplus, why would there be any building at all?

Because the UK is not a village.

sennypijama

Jimmy owns North Angleland.
Jenny owns South Angleland.
The build themselves houses.

Abdul moves into North Angleland.
Jimmy builds another house.

Sven moves into North Angleland.
Jimmy builds another house.

Sensing an influx, Jimmy builds another couple of houses.

Jenny, thinking that if she builds it, they will come, also builds a couple.
Now there is a surplus of 4 houses.

Luckily Jean-Paul moves to South Angleland - straight into one of the empty houses.

Jenny builds another house, in anticipation.

Jimmy is worrying, because his two empty houses are just sitting there, so he decides not to build any more for now.

But then Svetlana, Goodluck and Hans move to North Angleland. There's only enough houses for two of them.

Now there is a housing shortage in North Angleland, but a surplus in South Angleland.

etcetera...

SailorSam

If Jimmy & Jenny had realised what was going to happen to house prices in London they'd never have bothered building houses in Angleland they would have come here and made a killing in London.

CLAPTON

sennypijama wrote: »

Jimmy owns North Angleland.
Jenny owns South Angleland.
The build themselves houses.

Abdul moves into North Angleland.
Jimmy builds another house.

Sven moves into North Angleland.
Jimmy builds another house.

Sensing an influx, Jimmy builds another couple of houses.

Jenny, thinking that if she builds it, they will come, also builds a couple.
Now there is a surplus of 4 houses.

Luckily Jean-Paul moves to South Angleland - straight into one of the empty houses.

Jenny builds another house, in anticipation.

Jimmy is worrying, because his two empty houses are just sitting there, so he decides not to build any more for now.

But then Svetlana, Goodluck and Hans move to North Angleland. There's only enough houses for two of them.

Now there is a housing shortage in North Angleland, but a surplus in South Angleland.

etcetera...

yes indeed there will always be need to build a limited number of houses for specific reasons


but on aggregate, what would your expectation be; comparing a rapid growing population relative to a static or only slowly growing population, on the number of new buildings?

sennypijama

As I've said, that really depends on the need for buildings. You don't seem to understand that if there was excess building in times when the population was not growing as fast, then that would create a surplus.

I make my points not to say that there is no need for housebuilding. I care about logic and statistics. The chart posted does not make the case for housebuilding, since the data is largely irrelevant. You need to take into account family size, empty homes, and any surplus in building over the previous 20 or so years, together with house prices, average salary, buying potential and many other factors.

Do we need more housing? Maybe.
Does the chart prove that? Absolutely not. But it looks good!

In_For_A_Penny_2

sennypijama wrote: »

As I've said, that really depends on the need for buildings. You don't seem to understand that if there was excess building in times when the population was not growing as fast, then that would create a surplus.

I make my points not to say that there is no need for housebuilding. I care about logic and statistics. The chart posted does not make the case for housebuilding, since the data is largely irrelevant. You need to take into account family size, empty homes, and any surplus in building over the previous 20 or so years, together with house prices, average salary, buying potential and many other factors.

Do we need more housing? Maybe.
Does the chart prove that? Absolutely not. But it looks good!

I am also not convinced by this graph that seems to appear on these pages every other day. There is clearly more complex issues at play considering the average household size is unchanged for 20 years.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/family-demography/families-and-households/2013/rft-tables.xls

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

sennypijama wrote: »

. if there was excess building in times when the population was not growing as fast, then that would create a surplus

The Barker report noted in 2004 that the UK required 240,000 + new houses a year just to keep up with population growth and changes in household composition.

We haven't built that many in a single year since then.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

In_For_A_Penny wrote: »

There is clearly more complex issues at play considering the average household size is unchanged for 20 years. ]

The average staying the same is a sign of rising housing pressure though.

We've seen a big increase in single person households over the last few decades.

If we were building enough houses to keep up with housing need, the average should have fallen to around 2.0 by now, as it already has in many other developed nations unconstrained by a housing shortage.

The number of people living on their own has more than doubled since 1971.

Around 14% of the population in England now live alone compared with 6.5% in 1971.

■ Most of the growth has been among those of working age – from 1 million living alone in 1971 to 3.5 million now. A much greater proportion of working age adults now live alone than used to be the case.

The growth in people living alone is a matter of potential concern because it has tangible implications for the overall consumption of housing and other resources which tend to increase in proportion to the number of households rather than to the total population;

http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/9781859354759.pdf