Supply isn't the problem, we have a surplus of housing

martinsurrey

kinger101 wrote: »

Most the people from the continent I know who work here comment on how small and poorly maintained the houses are here. Which gets us back to the original problem. It's difficult to find a single bedroom property which has a proper lounge and kitchen, and a two bedroom property which has room for a dining table. That's partly why people buying have more bedrooms than they need.....to get the ground floor space.

This in spades.

The wife and I have several spare bedrooms we really don't care about, but we use 100% of the space under those rooms. I would happily trade my house for one with less bedrooms as long as it had the same usable space.

cepheus

CLAPTON wrote: »

indeed so

a decent government would stop the under occupation of state owned property immediately

but we can agree that Monbiot is one the biggest idiots on the planet

I suspect Monbiot has his eye more on the private sector. It sounds perfectly sensible to me, although I would pay more.

cepheus

HappyMJ wrote: »

Yes that's my house. It's under occupied. I rent a 2 bedroom flat and have one spare bedroom. Why? Because the 1 bedroom flats in this area are awful and for just £95 a month more the 2 bedroom flat I rent is affordable to me.

What can we do about that? Build more tiny 1 bedroom flats? No thanks.

I think he reckons you should share and pay less, or pay a tax for the extra bedroom to help out with the national housing shortage.

mystic_trev

Generali wrote: »

Congratulations on making the most pointless post of the day.

The poor loves probably knackered after having to clean up his Flat for its six monthly inspection.

WHA

martinsurrey wrote: »

This in spades.

The wife and I have several spare bedrooms we really don't care about, but we use 100% of the space under those rooms. I would happily trade my house for one with less bedrooms as long as it had the same usable space.

New builds are very poorly designed as regards storage space, so people find themselves needing a spare bedroom or two just for storage. Developers and purchases seem obsessed with numbers of rooms and room size and completely ignore practical storage as an alternative.

It's the thing we like about our 1970's house. We have three decent sized cupboards, two downstairs, one upstairs, and we also have a decent sized integral garage, not to mention boarded, easily accessed, clean loft space in the house and the garage too! This means we don't have clutter and don't need to store stuff in the living rooms or bedrooms. Everything is behind closed doors which makes cleaning etc a doddle.

cashbackproblems

The problem is in London anyway too much demand not enough properties being built, partly due to immigration pushing up the market and partly foreign investors buy up blocks.

CLAPTON

cepheus wrote: »

I suspect Monbiot has his eye more on the private sector. It sounds perfectly sensible to me, although I would pay more.

how exactly does increasing tax help reform the planning laws and release land for housing?

Pennywise

cashbackproblems wrote: »

The problem is in London anyway too much demand not enough properties being built, partly due to immigration pushing up the market and partly foreign investors buy up blocks.

Probably a bigger problem is the sheer number of empty properties. Foreign buyers seem to buy numerous properties and are happy for them to remain empty, presumably as a long term investment. One of my clients has a couple of apartments in a newly converted block of around 50 - he lives in one and rents out the other and says there's no-one else actually living on his floor despite them all having sold.

I saw similar in Cyprus in a complex I've gone to several times over the years. At first, I thought that the large number of clearly empty apartments was because they hadn't yet been sold as it was a relatively new complex. Several years later, it's virtually the same, except that there is now a lot more dust on the windows of those empty apartments. Last time I was there, I asked at the management/sales office about them, only to be told that actually there were only a couple of apartments still for sale and that most had been sold "off-plan" before the complex was built and that many of the owners have never even been to look at "their investments"!!

antrobus

Pennywise wrote: »

Probably a bigger problem is the sheer number of empty properties. ...

There are actually very few empty properties in the UK compared to other European nations.

Pennywise wrote: »

...Foreign buyers seem to buy numerous properties and are happy for them to remain empty, presumably as a long term investment. ...

It is claimed, at least anecdotally, that buy-to-leave (as it is known) is an issue in London. Islington Council certainly thinks so, and is going to use s106 agreements to enforce a requirement to occupy.

Pennywise wrote: »

...I saw similar in Cyprus in a complex I've gone to several times over the years....

Aren't property prices in Cyprus falling?

antrobus

cepheus wrote: »

I suspect Monbiot has his eye more on the private sector. It sounds perfectly sensible to me, although I would pay more.

What do you mean, "you'd pay more"? Why aren't you going to share your property with with the homeless?

cepheus wrote: »

I think he reckons you should share and pay less, or pay a tax for the extra bedroom to help out with the national housing shortage.

Yeh, but what we all want to know is what Monbiot has done about his own personal arrangements? Certainly at the time he wrote this piece (saying much the same thing) back in 2011 ....

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/04/take-housing-fight-wealthy?

... he was living alone in a four bedroomed farmhouse somewhere near Machynleth following his divorce? Of course, things might have changed since then. Perhaps he is renting out his three empty bedrooms to some deserving local farmworkers.