Corbyn promises 'radical reboot' of council house building to tackle housing crisis

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

In my view you are missing a trick here.

The cost of social housing already exists. It's called housing benefits. In many respects it's a transfer of tax payers money to private landlords.

Now, sure, there is a cost element of initially building X amount of council houses, but theres also a savings element. Once the houses are built, they will cost X amount to run and maintain. However, that amount will be far below the amount of housing benefit handed out by the state for the equivalent number of homes.

So although there is a huge upfront cost element, there are savings to be had also for as long as the house remains council owned and the famil are housed there rather than shelling out housing benefit each month.

You state that it would cost £20bn to build 100k houses. That's a one off cost.

The housing benefit bill is around £35bn annually.

So lets say we house 100,000 families in these new homes and each is getting an average £500 a month in housing benefit. Straight away you have saved £600m per year. Project that over 10 years and £6bn has been saved (more if you factor in the saved inflation on the benefits). But that's not the end of it, as rents across the spectrum will have reduced due to the new supply, reducing housing benefits across the board....another annual saving.

Then theres extra taxes paid by all those employed to build them.

In time, the houses pay for themselves.

in accountancy terms one needs to factor in
-interest paid on the money
-maintenance of the properties
-permanent rent subsidy (as opposed to HB which is based on means tested)

In house building terms the overall result depends whether these properties are additional to those that would otherwise be built or simply a shift from private to public building

Any extra tax (or benefit savings) due to employment building, is only applicable if these people would otherwise be unemployed.
Currently I would be surprised if there was a significant number of unemployed builders.

Overall though, if this leads to increase in total number of units over and above that would otherwise be built then that must be a good thing: they can always be sold to deserving families later.

Dansmam

cells wrote: »

The council's stand in the way of private house building they won't stand in the way if their own bosses and will just wave through the plans

It doesn't work like that. Councils apply the same rules to council applications they do to yours and mine. They have to. Hard to believe but they do what's right and follow the rules. Boring but true.:A

Mistermeaner

With Clapton on this

It doesn't need councils or government to get involved in building anything, just take the shackles off the planning and perhaps release dormant land, then market forces will prevail and houses will be built and become more affordable

Those in need of social housing can be relocated to the vacant left behinds as and when they become available.

Why on earth would we want or need councils to start building stuff themselves? They could do that today if they so wished- they don't because it's economical

stator

"Market forces" have never been able to build enough houses in this country.
"Market forces" result in big builders only building the number of houses they want (about 200,000 per year max). If they build enough houses, prices would stop going up.
To get back up to 400,000 per year we need to bring back council lead building.

Mistermeaner

stator wrote: »

"Market forces" have never been able to build enough houses in this country.
"Market forces" result in big builders only building the number of houses they want (about 200,000 per year max). If they build enough houses, prices would stop going up.
To get back up to 400,000 per year we need to bring back council lead building.

Wrong, just wrong

There are plenty of people with money who want houses, the problem is having somewhere to build which is primarily limited by planning

Free up planning and houses will go up

Graham_Devon

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Free up planning and houses will go up

Its not as simple as that. Builders, like any company, are not going to flood the market with their product and force the price of their product down.

We've had all these "words" over the past few years. We've seen the results of things like help to buy, something which was supposed to ramp up building etc. None of them work.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Its not as simple as that. Builders, like any company, are not going to flood the market with their product and force the price of their product down.

Builders, like any company, make profit from doing what they do.

It's not a static system so why imagine a future where only the planning changes? Builders would need to adapt. I'd expect new entrants - the massive capital costs of land banks and departments to handle bureaucracy & bribes required for planning is a huge barrier to entry.

This was posted the other day - just look at how much of the cost of a house is spent on stuff other than the house itself. Apparently double the price and you've covered services, fittings, tiles & foundations.

http://mountainlodgehomes.co.uk/properties/

Graham_Devon wrote: »

We've had all these "words" over the past few years. We've seen the results of things like help to buy, something which was supposed to ramp up building etc. None of them work.

We've not seen much to improve supply.

Worth a try before spending billions of taxpayers money keeping rich landowners rich?

Mistermeaner

help to buy did not address planning, neither to the house saving isa's

biggest single restriction is planning - the house builders and councils between them have cornered planning.

Free it up and new smaller builders will enter the market and people will be able to buy plots themselves and up the houses will fly.

Lungboy

antrobus wrote: »

The first hard truth is that the Tories didn’t win despite austerity, they won because of it. Voters did not reject Labour because they saw it as austerity lite. Voters rejected Labour because they perceived the Party as anti-austerity lite. 58% agree that, ‘we must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority’. Just 16% disagree. Almost all Tories and a majority of Lib Dems and Ukip voters agree.

Labour lost because voters believed it was anti-austerity
http://labourlist.org/2015/08/labour-lost-because-voters-believed-it-was-anti-austerity/

Least ways, that's what Jon Crudas says, based on the first findings of the Labour Party's inquiry into why it lost.

A blatent Push Poll to get the results that the "Party" wanted, ie. that the move to the Left was to blame.

ukcarper

Mistermeaner wrote: »

help to buy did not address planning, neither to the house saving isa's

biggest single restriction is planning - the house builders and councils between them have cornered planning.

Free it up and new smaller builders will enter the market and people will be able to buy plots themselves and up the houses will fly.

So how come the new development of 3.5k properties near me is going to take 10 years to complete.