Milliband promises rent controls

antrobus

jamesd wrote: »

"...Germany: "House prices have been rising rapidly with commensurate increases in owner-occupation. The atmosphere in terms of eviction has become more toxic....

Like I said, it has something interesting things to say about Germany.

There are some people, as we have seen here on this thread, who believe that Germany is the model to follow. Based, no doubt, on what they remember reading in the Guardian some years ago.

However the LSE report notes how the situation has "changed considerably" in Germany since 2008, that Germany has "relatively lower levels of new building than even the UK", and that Berliners have seen "considerably higher rent increases than Londoners". So clearly if you thought that the UK had a problem with either (a) insufficient house building, or (b) rapidly increasing rents, then perhaps the German model would not be the way to go.

I also found out something that I didn't know before, which is that in Germany, homes are normally rented 'bare' i.e. "they are unfurnished and usually do not even contain kitchens; the tenant is expected to purchase and install their own". When you think about it, that's perfectly logical in terms of a longer term lease, and therefore would be one of the consequences of pushing for longer leases.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

Like I said, it has something interesting things to say about Germany.

There are some people, as we have seen here on this thread, who believe that Germany is the model to follow. Based, no doubt, on what they remember reading in the Guardian some years ago.

However the LSE report notes how the situation has "changed considerably" in Germany since 2008, that Germany has "relatively lower levels of new building than even the UK", and that Berliners have seen "considerably higher rent increases than Londoners". So clearly if you thought that the UK had a problem with either (a) insufficient house building, or (b) rapidly increasing rents, then perhaps the German model would not be the way to go.

I also found out something that I didn't know before, which is that in Germany, homes are normally rented 'bare' i.e. "they are unfurnished and usually do not even contain kitchens; the tenant is expected to purchase and install their own". When you think about it, that's perfectly logical in terms of a longer term lease, and therefore would be one of the consequences of pushing for longer leases.

Germany has a considerably larger stock of housing. Over 40 million units vs 27.5 million units in the UK

were the UK to have the same number of homes per capita we would have 5 million more homes

it doesn't matter if Germany is now building few new homes. Even if they built zero homes from now on it would take us 100 years...literally 100 years...at our average build rate to catch up to what they currently have.

princeofpounds

at our average build rate to catch up to what they currently have.

And that's not even our *net* build rate, accounting for properties abandoned/demolished.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

Germany has a considerably larger stock of housing. Over 40 million units vs 27.5 million units in the UK

were the UK to have the same number of homes per capita we would have 5 million more homes

it doesn't matter if Germany is now building few new homes. Even if they built zero homes from now on it would take us 100 years...literally 100 years...at our average build rate to catch up to what they currently have.

None of the above, even if true, invalidates anything that the LSE have to say in their study.

buglawton

ukcarper wrote: »

I really can't see it making that much of a difference landlords can set rent they like at start of tenancy and increase by CPI during tenancy. I certainly don't think it will cause the rental market to seize up but then I don't think it will make much difference to majority on tenants.

£300m wiped off the value of the UK's house builders yesterday, looks like the stock market is expecting the house building sector to shrink under Millibands proposed rules.

ukcarper

buglawton wrote: »

£300m wiped off the value of the UK's house builders yesterday, looks like the stock market is expecting the house building sector to shrink under Millibands proposed rules.

I'm not sure how you draw that conclusion, house building starts have fallen in the last 2 quarters.

buglawton

The timing - the housebuilding sector fell soon after Miliband's announcement about rent controls and interference with tenancy agreements
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11567247/Housebuilders-hit-by-Milibands-move-to-restrict-rents-and-new-home-sale.html

CLAPTON

buglawton wrote: »

£300m wiped off the value of the UK's house builders yesterday, looks like the stock market is expecting the house building sector to shrink under Millibands proposed rules.

well, the article actually says that initially the stock fell by 300 million, however by close they were only down by 65 million

doesn't say what happened next

ukcarper

buglawton wrote: »

The timing - the housebuilding sector fell soon after Miliband's announcement about rent controls and interference with tenancy agreements
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11567247/Housebuilders-hit-by-Milibands-move-to-restrict-rents-and-new-home-sale.html

There are plenty of things in announcement that are more likely to cause building shares to fall than his rent control plans.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

None of the above, even if true, invalidates anything that the LSE have to say in their study.

Its not a paper I have read,

I was just pointing out that the build rate, without considering the stock of homes, is misleading.


The stock of homes in the UK is far too low in comparison to france or germany. Were the UK to have the same number of homes per capita as Germany we would now today have 5 million additional homes. Were it the same per capita as France we would have 3 million additional homes.

If we use France as the benchmark then the UK has a shortage of homes of ~3 million units and the gap is growing as France builds >300,000 homes a year and the UK closer to 120,000 a year.

by 2025 France will have ~5 million more homes than the UK, while the UK will have a higher population.........