Housing Shortage Worsening - Another million homes needed in just 10 years....

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

England is heading for a shortfall of 1m homes over the next decade as the housing supply crisis intensifies, property experts have warned.

the gap between the number of units built and the number of homes needed to house England’s burgeoning population is 136,000 per year

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11653052/Britain-to-be-one-million-homes-short-of-housing-its-people-by-2025.html

shortchanged_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11653052/Britain-to-be-one-million-homes-short-of-housing-its-people-by-2025.html

Is this one of the these moments Hamish. :beer: :j:

Generali

This should be seen for what it is: a national disgrace.

TBH even with my market principles I think that the Government needs to step in and get stuff built and sold. Not bloody social housing: I can't think of anything worse than trying to get the council to come round to paint my front door or something. Get people owning like St Maggie of Grantham did.

It costs beggur all to build a house. I can have a 4 bed house built on a flat piece of land for $150k (say £75,000). Add £10,000 for a bit more insulation, proper central heating and double glazing and you've got a 4 bed, 2 reception house right there for £85,000. Including a tidy profit for the builder.

I could buy enough land to put 100 houses on for £50,000:

http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-property-for-sale/south-east/berkshire/77906_new130223/

So people could be buying a 4 bed house on 1/8th acre for under £100,000. It's crazy that they can't and it's the fault of pretty much everyone in Britain that they can't.

kabayiri

Londoners could be incentivised to convert some of the large properties in the Capital into multiple living units. There is plenty of green space to take advantage of too.

The raw materials are there; it just seems that there is a lack of will power.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11653052/Britain-to-be-one-million-homes-short-of-housing-its-people-by-2025.html

I won't ask you to agree, as I think that would be a step too far - but will you now open your mind to the fact that policies over the last 5 years to help builders sell houses haven't contributed at all to house building?

If you look at the financial results of these builders over the time period before and after policies such as help to buy were put in place all you see is a big swing in profits, but very little extra stock.

However only yesterday you stated that these policies were much needed and indeed we need more of the same.

In my mind it's time to cut all of the demand side policies helping builders prifits. Its time now to put in place a system of building like we did after the war. The private builders have had their chance and they have just got very fat.

kabayiri

How about a bit of innovation; some mobile derived homes for the South.

http://www.trueactivist.com/a-shipping-container-costs-about-2000-what-these-15-people-did-with-that-is-beyond-epic/

Graham_Devon

kabayiri wrote: »

How about a bit of innovation; some mobile derived homes for the South.

http://www.trueactivist.com/a-shipping-container-costs-about-2000-what-these-15-people-did-with-that-is-beyond-epic/

Be better simply to build houses in my view!

I have seen some marvellous stuff done with containers. Was on grand designs or the other programme small places or whatever it's called. The key point though was that these people...

A) had the land already (normally in the woods)
couldn't get sanitation or join the grid easily
C) looked at it as a hobby project.

It was more like camping on a grand scale really. Generators to provide electric, canisters to provide gas and a big hole in the ground to poop in.

So what they did was lovely, but wasn't really practical. it also took up more physical space than a standard rabbit hutch house did.

I can see how these sort of things would provide a solution. But I don't think we really need a solution to what houses are constructed from. We need a solution on just getting the damn things built.

princeofpounds

The private builders have had their chance and they have just got very fat.

The corporate private builders have had their chance.


Meanwhile, some friends of mine have been trying to get planning permission to build a small handful of houses for three years now.


The latest update was because a single newt was seen in the pond six years ago, they have now been asked to DNA test the pond for newts. This after two separate newt surveys which found no trace.


The real irony is they aren't even intending to get rid of the pond.


Of course it's not really about the newts...


The only reason social housing is needed in this country is that the government strangely finds it easier to give the government permission to build.


The big corporate builders exist largely to force their way through this planning system, as that is where they create value. Actually building houses is an afterthought necessary only to monetise the land. That's why their quality is often so poor.


The results of this are very apparent in the chart below - it concerns self-build, but it also applies to small scale independent builds. Look in awe at how many European countries actually manage to deliver a majority of their homes through private building, mostly by future owner-occupiers.









Having lived in countries like Belgium, German and France I can tell you that their housing stock is far, far nicer than ours as a result of their policies which enable this sort of thing. More varied, better quality, cheaper.


You would think people would wake up to this, being able to travel through Europe freely, but it's like the UK has some collective blindspot, seeing the only solutions to home building as


1) identikit barratts wage-slave boxes
2) identikit social housing, and then we jump right to...
3) sheds with beds and dingy HMOs.

ukcarper

They could try building some suitable smaller properties to encourage us older owners to downsize. They are building a new retirement village near me looks very nice but a 1 bed apartment is almost as much as my 4 bed house I haven't looked at service charges but I expect the are very high.

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

This should be seen for what it is: a national disgrace.

TBH even with my market principles I think that the Government needs to step in and get stuff built and sold. Not bloody social housing: I can't think of anything worse than trying to get the council to come round to paint my front door or something. Get people owning like St Maggie of Grantham did.

It costs beggur all to build a house. I can have a 4 bed house built on a flat piece of land for $150k (say £75,000). Add £10,000 for a bit more insulation, proper central heating and double glazing and you've got a 4 bed, 2 reception house right there for £85,000. Including a tidy profit for the builder.

I could buy enough land to put 100 houses on for £50,000:

http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-property-for-sale/south-east/berkshire/77906_new130223/

So people could be buying a 4 bed house on 1/8th acre for under £100,000. It's crazy that they can't and it's the fault of pretty much everyone in Britain that they can't.

I presume these figures are for Australia and you realise there is a vast difference in available land compared to the UK

Generali wrote: »

I could buy enough land to put 100 houses on for £50,000:

It cost me 6 figures to buy land to build one house two years ago, so I would find it hard to conceive the same options are available to build in the UK as it is in Australia

Generali wrote: »

I can have a 4 bed house built on a flat piece of land for $150k (say £75,000). [/URL]

It would probably cost you £75,000 just for the kit and not all the labour and services to build a house and connect to the grid.

He'll, even the quote to install gas, went from £2k up to £10k as a result of a second house being built (needed a bigger pipe apparently)

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

I could buy enough land to put 100 houses on for £50,000:

http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-property-for-sale/south-east/berkshire/77906_new130223/

Theres a reason this price is so low

The Reed Beds extend to approximately 15 acres, of which 14.26 acres is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which restricts the use of the property to its current use as a Reed Bed.

So you couldn't put 100 houses on it