Is there really a housing shortage?

PasturesNew

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Your numbers are way, way off.

There are only about 335,000 households in England who own a second home in the UK.

There are only 670,000 households who own a second home anywhere at all, but for around half of them, that second home is overseas.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/owner-occupiers-recent-first-time-buyers-and-second-homes

Cheers for the information overload

Looking at one of the spreadsheets, FA2601, the number of 2nd homes (and why):

3.5 million second homes.

But look at the tabs and it shows:

2008-2009 2.6 million 2nd homes
2009-2010 2.9 million
2010-2011 3.0 million
2011-2012 no data
2012-2013 3.2 million
2013-2014 3.5 million

So they're growing ... fast.

For the purposes of housing people all of these are sitting empty and not insignificant if you're working on the basis of having not enough housing available.

Although, realistically, if housing were created overnight for everybody .... then it'd increase those who suddenly saw it was achievable and would want one.

We need fewer people too.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

PasturesNew wrote: »

Cheers for the information overload

Welcome.

Looking at one of the spreadsheets, FA2601, the number of 2nd homes (and why):

3.5 million second homes.

But look at the tabs and it shows:

2008-2009 2.6 million 2nd homes
2009-2010 2.9 million
2010-2011 3.0 million
2011-2012 no data
2012-2013 3.2 million
2013-2014 3.5 million

So they're growing ... fast.

For the purposes of housing people all of these are sitting empty and not insignificant if you're working on the basis of having not enough housing available. .

You're looking at the wrong file.

FT2611 is the second homes data.... The ones that as you note might be 'sitting empty' for much of the time.

And that shows just a paltry 335K in England, and only 375K in the UK as a whole, out of 28m houses.

FT 2601 includes BTL - so houses that are actually rented out and thus a primary home for somebody, just not the owners, and as we all know the supply of rented houses has risen markedly over the last few years thanks to mortgage rationing for owner occupiers.

mwpt

cells wrote: »

don you think you are totally contradicting yourself?

you say, credit plays no part where supply is good

you also say credit is the root cause of the high prices..... in effect only where supply is not good

so what you are saying is that supply sets prices but trying very hard to hold onto pet theory 1.0 at least unlike a lot of the crash wishers half your brain wants you to see the truth

You are so desperate to disagree with me on anything that you don't actually understand my posts. I never said supply/demand was not an issue, it obviously has to be.

I can't say it more simply that this:

If demand outstrips supply, prices will increase. By how much is determined by cost and availability of credit.

It took me many many posts for people on here to admit that BTL outbid OOs and when they did the argument morphed into "so what?". I am confident that one day you will admit that credit plays a big part in driving prices up, but at that point I'm intrigued in how you will morph your argument.

Generali

mwpt wrote: »

I'll be waiting for the rental graphs from 1970s for a while I suspect.

I don't think they'd be meaningful as rent controls were in place until the 1980s so rents wouldn't reflect supply and demand.

antrobus

PasturesNew wrote: »

Cheers for the information overload

Looking at one of the spreadsheets, FA2601, the number of 2nd homes (and why):

3.5 million second homes....

Of which 2.5 million are the "main residence of someone else". Or as the Scottish One has pointed out; that's foxin BTL.

PasturesNew wrote: »

...We need fewer people too.

Are you volunteering?

cells

mwpt wrote: »

You are so desperate to disagree with me on anything that you don't actually understand my posts. I never said supply/demand was not an issue, it obviously has to be.

I can't say it more simply that this:

If demand outstrips supply, prices will increase. By how much is determined by cost and availability of credit.

It took me many many posts for people on here to admit that BTL outbid OOs and when they did the argument morphed into "so what?". I am confident that one day you will admit that credit plays a big part in driving prices up, but at that point I'm intrigued in how you will morph your argument.

credit exists you cant just put it back into a bottle

what we have had over the last 8 years is that the government and banks decided to regulate mortgages and credit more. Your pet theory 1.0 says prices should have fallen and exactly the same people could just buy at a lower figure. What we actually observed was that there was a negligible impact on prices but a huge impact on the mix of buyers

so the availability of credit plays a lessor role in price and a bigger role on who can buy. you could try to take your pet theory 1.0 and expand it and see if it still makes sense. What if all mortgages were made illegal what would happen? pet theory 1.0 suggests homes would fall to two ha penny and just as many people could buy.

Whereas what will happen is that 1: transactions will crash as owners decide not to sell their properties for 2 shillings. 2: build rates will crash as few builders can sell for 2 shillings. 3: rich folk with more than 2 shilling will bid 3 shillings from savings and we will see a big expansion of mortgage free rentals. your theory and ideas say no to all this but that is EXACTLY what we have seen over the last 8 years


Hamish had an interesting post a few years back on the availability of cheap and easy credit being a huge equaliser in society. Allowing those without capital to bid for assets (specifically homes) instead of having to rent. He was of course correct. now with mortgage rationing we have and will continue to see less equality as you have taken away from the less well off a source of capital

antrobus

cells wrote: »

credit exists you cant just put it back into a bottle,,,

Yes you can. You can just repay it. In recent years M4 lending has been shrinking.

cells

mwpt wrote: »

If demand outstrips supply, prices will increase. By how much is determined by cost and availability of credit.

this is where your theory falls down you need to amend it slightly to the following

If demand outstrips supply, prices will increase. By how much is determined by cost and availability of credit AND savings AND equity.

With more credit rationing we just see a faster shift to renters. If we had no mortgage market at all we would see an even faster shift to renting.



So here is a question I have asked you before. In cheap affordable parts of the country, much of the north and midlands, why has ownership fallen and renting increased? My idea is that it is down to credit rationing. What does pet theory have to say about the situation?

cells

antrobus wrote: »

Yes you can. You can just repay it. In recent years M4 lending has been shrinking.

the ability to get credit.....

antrobus

cells wrote: »

the ability to get credit.....

You can put the "ability to get credit" 'back in the bottle' as well. You can just take it away by deciding not to lend.