Right to buy to be extended

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Sapphire wrote: »

I'm hoping that foreign buyers cease buying the 'luxury' flats that are blotting the London landscape to a great degree. My sister and I went past the Battersea power station area by train the other day. The 'luxury apartments' they are flinging up in that area (and other areas) are truly horrendous and are destroying London's character (as is the gutting of historic buildings in central London, etc. by people who couldn't give a stuff about Britain's history, or indigenous Britons for that matter).

It does seem like soon the whole of London will be converted into luxury flats, and we may as well just tarmac the whole SE corner of the isles and turn it into a giant airport so Qatari and Chinese businessmen can fly in to check their property assets once a year.

fordcapri2000

I think the reason why I disliked the Right to Buy schemes from the very start, and I was on my second home when I watched so many people taking advantage of it. Was that people who constantly used bad luck stories and played the victim in order to get social housing along with years of taking Housing Benefit suddenly got their act together and found vast sums of money to take advantage of this windfall, proving they can provide for themselves if they put their mind to it in many cases.

Most of us from the start work and have always worked 40 plus hours a week, as well as many people in social housing I grant you. But it is a kick in the teeth to those that have always worked and paid their way and struggled with a mortgage or even to get a mortgage.

Like I said so many of us have witnessed the abuse of the lazy taking these bribes, my worst being a lazy criminal junkie pusher in affluent Letchworth I knew of who only took interest in his kids and "his bird" when a five figure RTB offer came into play.

or

The latest was watching channel 4 on social housing an Asian couple with three kids where the only income was the man working in a curry house as a waiter and on HB turned down a luxury 3 bed ensuite property in Tower Hamlets woth £750k because it never had private parking, they never drove by the way.

It was quite clear they could see the potential RTB windfall in a few times with more money being made with private parking. The woman who showed them around basically through gritted teeth told them that they had several families who could be there in 10 minutes.. "DO YOU WANT IT OR NOT OR I WILL GIVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE"

Shock horror, they took it.

cells

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

I think the reason why I disliked the Right to Buy schemes from the very start, and I was on my second home when I watched so many people taking advantage of it. Was that people who constantly used bad luck stories and played the victim in order to get social housing along with years of taking Housing Benefit suddenly got their act together and found vast sums of money to take advantage of this windfall, proving they can provide for themselves if they put their mind to it in many cases.

Most of us from the start work and have always worked 40 plus hours a week, as well as many people in social housing I grant you. But it is a kick in the teeth to those that have always worked and paid their way and struggled with a mortgage or even to get a mortgage.

Like I said so many of us have witnessed the abuse of the lazy taking these bribes, my worst being a lazy criminal junkie pusher in affluent Letchworth I knew of who only took interest in his kids and "his bird" when a five figure RTB offer came into play.

or

The latest was watching channel 4 on social housing an Asian couple with three kids where the only income was the man working in a curry house as a waiter and on HB turned down a luxury 3 bed ensuite property in Tower Hamlets woth £750k because it never had private parking, they never drove by the way.

It was quite clear they could see the potential RTB windfall in a few times with more money being made with private parking. The woman who showed them around basically through gritted teeth told them that they had several families who could be there in 10 minutes.. "DO YOU WANT IT OR NOT OR I WILL GIVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE"

Shock horror, they took it.

There was a time in London (mid to late 90s) where the right to buy surveyors probably greatly undervalued the homes. My guess is these middle class people went into council estates they had never been in an though !!!!!! how can anyone live here and as a result often flats were baught for 20k 30k 40k etc

those were silly valuations as you can't even buy the materials for a home for £25k let alone the labor and land.

But that has now gone.
if you take your example of the 750k house the surveyor would value it for 750k. The London discount of £100k takes thr buy price to £650k which is a massive profit for the council who probably built it for £80k (in real terms today money)

But also who can afford a 650k house? Even if you had a 100k deposit you would need a job paying £135k plus for a mortgage on the rest. So few people get paid such sums and almost none of those people live in council homes


the right to buy was taken up in large numbers when homes were cheap. Now its tiny amount and probably even less in London

cells

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Theres a perverse situation going on in London at the moment. There was a piece about the rich in London on the TV the other day. One of the key features was a firm which specialises in two areas.

Their main area is digging out basements for wealthy clients.

Their second business area, which came as an offshoot of their main basement business was splitting up larger properties (were talking 3/4 bedroom family homes) into flats, mainsonettes and HMO's.

Their clients are often the same people!

They will make the houses bigger with new basements for the wealthy clients, and then go 10 miles down the road and make the other homes they own much much smaller in order to maximise the income.

The firm is going from strength to strength. Was all part of the non-dom stuff as a lot of their clients are non-doms.

Fascinating to see what's going on anyway. Was an outright example of the rich getting richer and makign the properties they live in bigger and bigger while the poor get poorer and poorer and the rich serve them by reducing their living space in order to extract even more money from them.

Like the programme suggested though - walk down these London streets and apart from the apparent noise of basements being built sometimes, you'd not have any idea of what's going on.

The conversion of larger homes into smaller ones or HMOs is a NEED to addressthe shortage of new builds without it there would be thousands of people sleeping in parks

currently the build rate is sufficient to house about 250,000 people yet the population grows at about 500,000 people leaving 250,000 people to find homes elsewhere and the only option clearly is to cram into existing homes

HMOs, Conversions, a shift from owners to renters, these are the ways those 250,000 YEARLY avoid sleeping under bridges


also HMOs are now I think the primary rental sector. Groups of friends renting 3 bed flats and living in them as a group of 3-6 unrelated people

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Theres a perverse situation going on in London at the moment. There was a piece about the rich in London on the TV the other day. One of the key features was a firm which specialises in two areas.

Their main area is digging out basements for wealthy clients.

Their second business area, which came as an offshoot of their main basement business was splitting up larger properties (were talking 3/4 bedroom family homes) into flats, mainsonettes and HMO's.

Their clients are often the same people!

They will make the houses bigger with new basements for the wealthy clients, and then go 10 miles down the road and make the other homes they own much much smaller in order to maximise the income.

The firm is going from strength to strength. Was all part of the non-dom stuff as a lot of their clients are non-doms.

Fascinating to see what's going on anyway. Was an outright example of the rich getting richer and makign the properties they live in bigger and bigger while the poor get poorer and poorer and the rich serve them by reducing their living space in order to extract even more money from them.

Like the programme suggested though - walk down these London streets and apart from the apparent noise of basements being built sometimes, you'd not have any idea of what's going on.

give us strength; do you see evil everywhere?

whatever next, people having extensions built or loft conversions, large house subdivided .... where will it all end?

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

give us strength do you see evil everywhere?

That is probably one of the major impacts of your political view

if you go around thinking people and companies are evil you will go around and find evidence to prove that (confirmation bias)


My own views are that most people are good and companies are just collections of people. From the self employed to the megacorporations all they want to do is sell their labour and earn a decent living from it

Of course some people make a lot more money than others (footballers make a hell if a lot more money than GPs make a hell of a lot more than police). The reasons are not really that of vakue or skill but of either state dictat or illogical human nature. The same applies often to companies the ones that make a load do so from state mandate or illogical human nature

wymondham

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Theres a perverse situation going on in London at the moment. There was a piece about the rich in London on the TV the other day. One of the key features was a firm which specialises in two areas.

Their main area is digging out basements for wealthy clients.

Their second business area, which came as an offshoot of their main basement business was splitting up larger properties (were talking 3/4 bedroom family homes) into flats, mainsonettes and HMO's.

Their clients are often the same people!

They will make the houses bigger with new basements for the wealthy clients, and then go 10 miles down the road and make the other homes they own much much smaller in order to maximise the income.

The firm is going from strength to strength. Was all part of the non-dom stuff as a lot of their clients are non-doms.

Fascinating to see what's going on anyway. Was an outright example of the rich getting richer and makign the properties they live in bigger and bigger while the poor get poorer and poorer and the rich serve them by reducing their living space in order to extract even more money from them.

Like the programme suggested though - walk down these London streets and apart from the apparent noise of basements being built sometimes, you'd not have any idea of what's going on.

do you think people like the basement idea as it also hides their wealth? you can have a crappy run down house with a mansion underneath!


joking aside when I read your post Graham I just though of Victorian England, not sure why?

Graham_Devon

CLAPTON wrote: »

give us strength; do you see evil everywhere?

whatever next, people having extensions built or loft conversions, large house subdivided .... where will it all end?

I never said or implied it was evil.

It seems it was you who read my post and concluded it was evil - before attempting to suggest I was thinking that.

I was looking at the social chaneg that is happening in London and the pace it's happening at.

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I never said or implied it was evil.

It seems it was you who read my post and concluded it was evil - before attempting to suggest I was thinking that.

I was looking at the social chaneg that is happening in London and the pace it's happening at.

the point is you always see social change in terms of rich and poor;
in particular the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer even where that is not the major significant issue.

The major social change in London is the influx of overseas people, rich, poor and everything in between and the subsequent rise in the population, which is superimposed on the general country wide social change.

Sapphire

Not sure whether you saw the programme on TV last night, about the conversion of many houses in various parts of London by digging out massive basements to house three large storeys under them. The results are spectacularly ugly (as they are following the internal gutting of historic properties in general), and the disruption to long-standing residents has to be seen to be believed. I have lived in places such as South Kensington and Holland Park in the past and loved them – but would not be seen dead in them now given how they are being destroyed. I'm just appalled by how foreigners, celebrities and the nouveau riche in general, who care nothing about our history, have been allowed to cause the destruction of this ancient city – both in terms of this sort of thing and in the building of vile-looking skyscrapers that belong in the 1960s. It's something that this country will come to bitterly regret once all the noise has died down – and a legacy that Boris Johnson will be vilified for.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I never said or implied it was evil.

It seems it was you who read my post and concluded it was evil - before attempting to suggest I was thinking that.

I was looking at the social chaneg that is happening in London and the pace it's happening at.