Milliband promises rent controls

padington

CLAPTON wrote: »

do you think that the policy would lead to greater homelessness or illegal letting?

Do you think the current situation is anything close to satisfactory and can you blame people resorting to anything else given the diabolically bad situation we have left many of our young people in regarding to housing in the South East ?

purch

floridaman wrote: »

He can't be serious about rent controls can he? How would he make that work in a free market?

It works very well in Manhattan. Can't think of too many freer markets than that.

CLAPTON

padington wrote: »

Do you think the current situation is anything close to satisfactory and can you blame people resorting to anything else given the diabolically bad situation we have left many of our young people in regarding to housing in the South East ?

I'm not sure that the housing situation has ever been 'satisfactory' in the London and SE

but making things worse is no solution.

diabolically bad is an over statement of the issue: in many ways the quality of housing is better than ever.

the volume in relation to the population is the issue.

we need to build more housing: rent controls won't achieve that.

Cyberman60

GwylimT wrote: »

I personally agree with rent controls, however nothing is going to be a quick fix.

While I do think rent controls shouls be introduced it is only the tip of the iceburg, the most important step is to build more social housing. While I do believe right to buy is brilliant for some people, it should have only been allowed if x amount of money from sales was safe guarded for further social building projects.

I also think both councils, private individuals and private businesa should be penalised for having long standing empty homes.

My grandma lives in a council property in an area with a substantial waiting list for social housing, on her street alone there are over 14 empty properties because the council who own them are unwilling to renovate them to be able to rent them out. So when tenanta moved out they were simply boarded up. The renovation needed at the time of boarding was new boilers to replace back boilers and wired smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, now they will be in such a state much more will need doing. These are mainly three bed semi's, some are detached with large gardens and a garage each, they are lovely family homes near a fantastic secondary school.

If councila are willing to let this happen they should be fined until the house is either offered for rent or sold.

Unfortunately their is not an easy fix for our housing problem, not only are our parties incapable of tackling this issue appropriately, they haven't got the guts.

There is absolutely no point in building more social housing when immigration is 300,000 a year, or 3,000,000 over 10 years. The answer is clearly to control immigration and thus reduce the demand for housing.

padington

CLAPTON wrote: »

I'm not sure that the housing situation has ever been 'satisfactory' in the London and SE

but making things worse is no solution.

diabolically bad is an over statement of the issue: in many ways the quality of housing is better than ever.

the volume in relation to the population is the issue.

we need to build more housing: rent controls won't achieve that.

The policy is being introduced in combination with a meaningful budget for more social housing to be built. Allowing tenants the security of knowing the cost of their housing over a three year period, whilst also allowing them to move if they so wish, I'm sure will be no more disastrous than the minimum wage was.

What is a disaster is having almost half of the wages of many normal workers being sucked up by rent when ideally that enormous energy should instead be spent furthering new businesses to create the new services and technologies that could give us a chance of becoming the world leader in those industries.

padington

Cyberman60 wrote: »

There is absolutely no point in building more social housing when immigration is 300,000 a year, or 3,000,000 over 10 years. The answer is clearly to control immigration and thus reduce the demand for housing.

You can't dramatically reduce immigration without ...

1) Reducing the working population which would make paying off our national debt much harder to achieve
2) Leaving the EU which would lose us a huge amount of business in the short to medium term. HSBC have already made this very clear.

UKIP doesn't have the answer.

CLAPTON

padington wrote: »

The policy is being introduced in combination with a meaningful budget for more social housing to be built. Allowing tenants the security of knowing the cost of their housing over a three year period, whilst also allowing them to move if they so wish, I'm sure will be no more disastrous than the minimum wage was.

What is a disaster is having almost half of the wages of many normal workers being sucked up by rent when ideally that enormous energy should instead be spent furthering new businesses to create the new services and technologies that could give us a chance of becoming the world leader in those industries.

rent controls and building more council houses are separate issues

clearly using half one's income for rent is not disastrous as people freely chose to come and live in London and the SE both from other parts of the UK and overseas

and not many people pay half their income in rent and I'm sure the alternatives to paying rent is unlikely to be creating new businesses, services and technologies.
Indeed one could consider that the high London rents should inspire people to work harder and increase their income

Obviously if we didn't have 500,000 immigrants each year, many settling in London, the housing problem would be much less.

thequant

CLAPTON wrote: »

clearly using half one's income for rent is not disastrous as people freely chose to come and live in London and the SE both from other parts of the UK and overseas

.

What amazes me about this often trotted out stat of >50% of income is spent on rent in London. Is the amount of people who live in the inner zones paying this and complaining.


If you can't afford 50% in zones 1/2/3, then shut up moaning and move out to zone 4/5/6 where you can afford it!


Rents in London are more than affordable if you chose your area carefully, however too many people choose to live in places they can't afford.

CLAPTON

thequant wrote: »

What amazes me about this often trotted out stat of >50% of income is spent on rent in London. Is the amount of people who live in the inner zones paying this and complaining.


If you can't afford 50% in zones 1/2/3, then shut up moaning and move out to zone 4/5/6 where you can afford it!


Rents in London are more than affordable if you chose your area carefully, however too many people choose to live in places they can't afford.

no-one lives where they can't afford
houses can't be unaffordable

CLAPTON

padington wrote: »

You can't dramatically reduce immigration without ...

1) Reducing the working population which would make paying off our national debt much harder to achieve
2) Leaving the EU which would lose us a huge amount of business in the short to medium term. HSBC have already made this very clear.

UKIP doesn't have the answer.

do you always trust what bankers tell you?