UK housing: The £24bn Property puzzle

cells

Are we saying the shortage of properties is as a result of only the last 4 years?

Shortage or not is a relative term.

In London there was a huge fall, constantly, from 1951 to 1991 in the number of people per house especially in the 1970s where the population fell by close to 1 million people and over 300,000 additional homes were built!

So during those years, 1951-1991 depending on how you want to look at it, London built a surplus or London alleviated its shortage

The 1991 - 2001 period was "steady". +300k people and ~ +200k homes

Since 2001 the story changed. Or actually maybe a little before that but the census is only every 10 years.


I would pick the year 1997 but you can probably make an argument for anywhere between 1992-2000 as the "turning point" for London.

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For the UK minus London the story is different. There was no 35% population loss like there was in inner London.

In the 1970s there was fantastic supply and little population growth with people per house falling massively

In the 1980s there was less supply and more population growth but it was still fine with people per house falling

In the 1990s there was even less supply and even more population growth but still people per house fell and it was fine

For the UK as a whole the problem really started somewhere in the 2001-2011 census. my guess is 2003

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So if you need to put a number on it, 1997 for when London turned and 2003 for when the UK turned from sufficient supply to an under supply.

Clearly that doesnt mean 1 day before things were fine and dandy and one day later we were in a terrible mess. It means that was the time the mess started and it got a little bit worse every month until we are where we are now. £1 million terrace homes in Hackney where half the population are on food stamps

IveSeenTheLight

cells wrote: »

Mr Light,

You need to factor in the fact that the people per household has been falling for all of living memory and in every country you can possibly name

So for the UK to stay at the same figure, while france ireland germany spain italy china india ........all reduce the number is in itself proof that we have quite the problem

We should now be near a figure of 2.1 or lower not at 2.3-something


France is a very close match to the UK in populaton and population growth and wealth and types of construction etc. The UK has 28 million homes, France has 34 million. That difference is our shortage of homes

Hey, don;t get me wrong, I'm also of the opinion there is a shortage of home building.

I was merely making a point that appears to reflect that the population grew 7.5% between 2001 and 2011 and properties increased by 8%.

I therefore was considering whether it is just the last 4 years that we have built below the population growth or not?

Killerseven

stator wrote: »

The Conservatives answer is to make people homeless and some magical force will sort things out.

Not homeless but move them out of London.

There will be many empty properties in London if housing benefit is cut to such an extent.

I wouldn't like to be a landlord trying to find someone who can afford to rent my property out of their own pocket.

dktreesea

cells wrote: »

also you are probably unaware but in London the figure has increased and for a long time

In the year 2000 it was close to 2.2, now it is over 2.4

These figures 2.2 and 2.4 sound such a small trivial difference but what it means is a difference of about 360,000 homes in London had we kept at the 2.2 figure rather than be forced to live more dense. 360,000 extra homes in London im sure you can agree is no trivial difference

Also as I pointed out before, the norm is not that the figure stays the same, the norm is that the figure should fall. So London should really be at 2.1 or even 2.0 to be comparable to the 2.2 of London in the year 2000

Maybe the norm is that the number of occupiers per dwelling should fall, but the reality is we should be more prepared to live with others, e.g. members of our extended family, if we have the room. That would take some pressure off housing demand and rents. Some parents are already doing this, i.e. with their 20s and 30s something children still living at home, and foreigners who move to Britain seem willing to live in packed houses, even several to a room in some cases.


maybe we should concentrate less on new homes and focus instead on better using the housing stock we have. So for social housing, this would mean building new housing stock, to get singles unwilling to pay bedroom tax into approparite sized dwellings. But for the rest of us, maybe we should just consider living with other people, rather than just wanting to nest on our own?

kabayiri

dktreesea wrote: »

Maybe the norm is that the number of occupiers per dwelling should fall, but the reality is we should be more prepared to live with others, e.g. members of our extended family, if we have the room. That would take some pressure off housing demand and rents. Some parents are already doing this, i.e. with their 20s and 30s something children still living at home, and foreigners who move to Britain seem willing to live in packed houses, even several to a room in some cases.

...

This has been the reality for a number of cultures for a while. If you can support multi-generational living in one housing unit you do gain on several fronts.

The ability to provide caring support for the elderly is just one.

I remember 3 decades ago that a number of Asian people in Rochdale working at a textile mill used to work different shifts. If a shift supervisor tried to change shifts around, a complaint would come back that the affected person would not have a bed to go back to - it was being used by another family member!

There's a thought. Shift living coming to London!

princeofpounds

But for the rest of us, maybe we should just consider living with other people, rather than just wanting to nest on our own?

I take your point, and there is a nice cuddly logic to it in a way - let's reform the happy extended family, grandparents looking after grandkids, keep close to your cousins etc.


But the truth is that people are so keen not to be in those situations that they are prepared to pay eye-watering rents to try compete for independent accommodation.


This is firm evidence that as nice as your idea sounds, it's much more in the realm of what people 'should' want rather than what people do want. I'm not sure I can stress enough how important this is - high prices are a warning sign of distress of some kind.


The byproducts of socially engineering people into communal living - through supply restriction and high prices - are a value transfer from the renting population to property owners, severe economic distortions and unintended social consequences like unwillingness to start families.

princeofpounds

This has been the reality for a number of cultures for a while. If you can support multi-generational living in one housing unit you do gain on several fronts.

Again, it's a nice idea, but the very strong evidence is that as people get wealthier, the one thing they do is try to escape such lifestyles. The effect is particularly strong as countries move through middle income status.


For example, in the last 10 years, average household size in India has dropped from ~5.5 to less than 5. Sounds like a small number but it's actually a huge drop, equivalent to almost a 20% rise in the number of households.


There is a lot of romanticism over poor-but-happy family cultures, which isn't especially helpful. The truth is a lot of people are pretty miserable being squashed into small places with a lot of family.

kabayiri

I understand the aspirational logic towards living independently.

Then again, if I were a politician, encouraging families to look after the infirm and elderly at home would be such a tempting proposition ... it would remove the care home headache!

princeofpounds

I understand the aspirational logic towards living independently.

Then again, if I were a politician, encouraging families to look after the infirm and elderly at home would be such a tempting proposition ... it would remove the care home headache!

Personally, I think there is a big lack of the sort of accommodation that people might actually want for multi-generational families these days.


Most people don't want their elderly parents in the back room of a crowded house, fighting for the same bathrooms, arguing over meals etc. Most elderly parents probably don't want that either (after all, how many boomers seem keen to give up their large houses as they age?! And fair enough, if they weren't restricting supply of similar homes to others.).


But I would imagine (and this is only a hypothesis) that many people would love to have their elderly parents living in independent accommodation of a 'normal' size, either next door, or down the road, or round the corner.


I think this ideal is hard to achieve practically for a number of reasons. It requires co-ordinating multiple households to move at the same time. It requires availability of suitable housing stock at the same time.


I do know that the closest thing you tend to get to it in reality - the so-called granny annexe - is wildly popular with buyers these days.


The simple fact is that our planning rules make it almost impossible to actually create this kind of accommodation, if it doesn't already exist.

The-Joker

wotsthat wrote: »

..or people are encouraged to go out and earn more. I'd expect an increase in homelessness of about nowt.

Oh great, tell all those immigrants arriving on our shores to go out and earn more just like that. I had no dea it was so easy, neither did they when you tell them:rotfl: