Why can't the UK build 240,000 houses a year?

cells

theEnd wrote: »

You sure? In my example the occupancy rate fell from 5 to 1.2, but nothing fundamentally changed, other than splitting of a house. The new build numbers are irrelevant.

Average size per home would be a better indication. Say in my example, in 1970, 5 people lived in 250sqm, now 4 sets of 1.2 people live in 62.5sqm.

Your occupancy rate has collapsed, but the need for actual new housing doesn't exist.

That one building isnt an independent nation

The housing stock and conversions (both ways as sometimes people buy two homes and knock into one decent sized home) are included in the stats already.

and the figures say sometime around the early 2000s the occupancy rate stopped falling and started to increase somethibg that has never happened in the UK before nor in any western European nation (bar perhaps ww2 damage for a brief period)

What needs to happen is that the UK needs to tend to 2.10 occupancy level and maybe even 2.0 while what is happening is the current occupancy rate of 2.35 is actually increasing

cells

Aura wrote: »

We got a lot of old buildings that would make ideal living accommodation if done up, but they are just left to fall down which is a shame.

Not really true, the uk has one of the lowest rates if empty homes

plus disrepair is a function of any and all housing stocks.

at any given time there will be homes that are falling into disrepair (for examole an elderly widow who has lived there for 30 years with nil maintiannce or repaire)

while at the very same time there are homes that are in a very bad shaoe being bought back inti habitable use (eg someone I know bought at auction a total wreck that was near enough unsafe to even go in...and has made it like new)

So we will never ever get to a situation of no wrecks but that has absolutely nothing to do with a shortage or excess of homes and more to do with 'churn'

Quasar

Meanwhile, six houses down my road there is a 5-flat house owned by a Housing Association. Two of the flats have been unoccupied for over a year. In another part of my area, an entire house has been allowed to fall into major disrepair by remaining vacant for at least two decades. It is large enough to make 4 flats out of it. This situation is not uncommon here in London, while new soulless apartment blocks are being built out of plastic, glass and metal, taking over ever more precious spaces that leave no greens or gardens.

cells

Blacklight wrote: »

No-one said anything about Cartels. I think you're missing the point. It's not about anyone fixing an artificially high price, it's about everyone naturally selling at a price everyone knows people will pay and maximising margins.

Why would everyone do that? Why wouldn't smaller outfits sell at a much lower reduced price and undercut the big boys? ...because they're not bloody stupid and it's development of houses and not a loaf of bread we're talking about.

I won't even start commenting on the France analogy.

Im not suggesting small players will sell below market price I am suggesting thr market price itself would be lower if there was 400+ thousand new builds a year rather than 130k or thereabouts we have

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

are you saying that it isn't possible to sell more at a lower price and make a bigger profit?
in the real world it happens every day

the reason that the big boys aren't quaking in their boots is because of our mad government controlled planning system.

why don't the small boys build at, say 10% below the massive hugely profitable big boys and still made riches beyond their wildest dreams.

presumably the reason that France and German (etc) builders can build at the appropriate rate is because they are all socially responsible, profit avoiding philanthropists or maybe they don't live in the real world.

Plus if the market was self regulating at 130k homes why is there a need at all for quotas? Why do the councils bother with planning departments and stamps if the greedy builders are in cahoots and will naturally build only 130k a year??

Also it doesn't explain the huge difference between councils and their build rates. Why or how are some areas building 10x ad many homes per capita than other areas?

Rules of economics and business vary from council to council? Or is it clear that building is limited by local quotas? Its dead simple the answer is quotas.

up the quotas and supply will increase
if supply increases prices will fall (relative to what they would of otherwise been, ie I don't expect pricss to actually fall the need and shortage is so great I expect then to instead rise more slowly if the building quotas were increased)

cells

six houses down my road there is a 5-flat house owned by a Housing Association. Two of the flats have been unoccupied for over a year. In another part of my area, an entire house has been allowed to fall into major disrepair by remaining vacant for at least two decades. It is large enough to make 4 flats out of it. This situation is not uncommon here in London, while new soulless apartment blocks are being built out of plastic, glass and metal, taking over ever more precious spaces that leave no greens or gardens.

Inefficency does not indicate a surplus. Eg you would not be stupid enough to conclude because thousands of tons if food is thrown in the bin there is no hunger in the world

the uk has much fewer empty homes than comparable nations eg france or Germany.

Also empty properties are a factor of churn not excess or shortage. Eg if the 750k or so empty homes in thr uk some 500,000 are empty no more than 6 months. Those are not empty homes those are churn and the fact that the figure hivers around the same number shows this churn to be true.

Also you will find some longer term homes have structural problems. Eg house over the road been empty about 4 years as it has subsidence problems and thus no one can get a mortgage on it and presumably unable to let due to safety

cells

padington wrote: »

After watching the 'super rich and us' on BBC iplayer you could easily conclude that big finance probably preferred to see their energy spent financing pound shops, pawn shops and gambling shops for the bottom of the new hour glass society and glass Ivory towers and elite goods for the Super rich at the top - investing for the 'squeezed middle' which was planned and foreseen to be threadbare before not too long was never a part of the agenda.

Why build a village for people you are betting won't exist before too long. Especially when that new village might blight your view from your own house and might lower the price of your current property portfolio.

When it comes to property for some, far easier to make money by doing absolutely nothing whilst legistlating to ensure almost nothing happens by anyone else.

you don't really need finance to provide lots of good quality housing.

Eg I took a look at the stats for turkey a mid income growing nation not much bigger than the UK in population. Build rate is in the 500k+ a year mark (vs 130k in the UK) and size of builds is typically more than twice uk average at 150sqm and some 70% of the new builds are financed (bought) without a mortgage which is a surprisingly high figure.

Also imo what we would find in a liberal planning system is that the new builds and the builders will target the higher markets. That is to say they will build the bigger higher priced homes. This is true in both Germany and france where new builds are typically 50sqm bigger on average than existing homes. My guess is the same would happen here were it not for quotas and quotas on quoyas for social housing. So the UK might go to 300k large homes pa and 100k mid sized homes pa build rate which is probably much better and more healthy than the crap 50sqm tiny homes the quotas allow and call for

cells

Hedgehog99 wrote: »

This country needs to reduce its population by about one third. Not overnight, obviously, but as an eventual goal to ensure resources and a decent standard of living for everyone.

Councils need to replace the council houses they've sold.

Brownfield sites can be used for some new housing.

If a pensioner wants to remain in the four-bed house they own, let them. They pay for it. They might need to have overnight carers to stay or accommodate boomerang children who'd otherwise turn to the council for housing. The house will return to the market when it is sold.

We can't just keep concreting over everything that has a blade of grass on it.

Its very common mistake to assume everywhere is being built. The reality is that a tiny fraction of the land is developed and if you in your local area don't have what you think a reasonable amount of open space its down to poor planning and poor quotas.

Also the future needs of the UK are largely residential not so much industrial retail manufacturing warehousing etc (as those buildings have simply got more productive eg more output per square meter) so the additional needs will take up even less land.

In total I don't think the UK will ever surpass ~38m homes. That means ~10m more homes which sounds a scary large number but will only take up circa
0.2 million acres of the 60 million availing (ie less than 0.4% of the empty land) so not much at all.

CLAPTON

Hedgehog99 wrote: »

This country needs to reduce its population by about one third. Not overnight, obviously, but as an eventual goal to ensure resources and a decent standard of living for everyone.

Councils need to replace the council houses they've sold.

Brownfield sites can be used for some new housing.

If a pensioner wants to remain in the four-bed house they own, let them. They pay for it. They might need to have overnight carers to stay or accommodate boomerang children who'd otherwise turn to the council for housing. The house will return to the market when it is sold.

We can't just keep concreting over everything that has a blade of grass on it.

100% of new builds in London are on brown fill sites

antrobus

cells wrote: »

....the uk has much fewer empty homes than comparable nations eg france or Germany. ....

Spain 3.4m
France 2.4m
Germany 1.8m

UK only 700,000. Compared to Ireland with 400,000 for a population of only 4.6m.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/europe-11m-empty-properties-enough-house-homeless-continent-twice

cells wrote: »

....Also empty properties are a factor of churn not excess or shortage. Eg if the 750k or so empty homes in thr uk some 500,000 are empty no more than 6 months. Those are not empty homes those are churn and the fact that the figure hivers around the same number shows this churn to be true.

Also you will find some longer term homes have structural problems. Eg house over the road been empty about 4 years as it has subsidence problems and thus no one can get a mortgage on it and presumably unable to let due to safety

There is no way that you can have no empty homes at all. There is, as you say, churn.