Number of new builds per year/style of construction.-a query

C_Mababejive

Listen good people of MSE for i require your learned assistance on a matter that has troubled me for some time and for which i cannot obtain an answer amongst my peer group which satisfies me.

I am prepared to admit i may be deficient in understanding in this area.

Now consulting Government data we can see that around 140,000 new builds are completed in the UK each year.

In the year 2015-2016 there were 189,650 nett additional homes produced in the UK. That takes into account the reduction due to demolitions so it is a truer figure.

Now then, the troubling question is,,who is buying them? More to the point, if there were 189,650 new properties available in 2015-16, where did all those people come from.? They cant all be homeless living in boxes as most would not be able to afford a new home although of course some will be social housing/rented.

Is it all truly down to mass immigration?

In downtown Manchester there are skyscraper blocks going up all over the place. On the borders of Manchester and Salford, there are mega construction projects going on, building truly huge tower blocks of flats,,mostly funded by Chinese investment companies. The scale of them is unprecedented in Manchester.

Again,who is buying them all? I suspect a lot is big commerical companies buying them up to let out at fierce rates.

As an aside, there was a news feature on tv the other day about Urban spash who were championing a new developement of factory built /site assembled homes. I have long thought that the era of men gluing clods of clay together on some windswept site is so outmoded and inefficient. But i will bet that Urban spash arent selling them cheaper ,oh no, they are simply increasing their profit margin.

As a visionary, i also have a double edged plan to solve the UK housing problem AND the rise in obesity at a stroke.

Henceforth HM government should legislate to ensure that in future, ALL new build houses shall be detached and comprise at least 3 storeys, i.e ground,1st,2nd. There is plenty of space in the sky ,a lower footprint, and plenty of excercise built in.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/568403/Housing_Supply_England_2015-16.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/502930/House_Building_Release_Dec_Qtr_2015.pdf

CLAPTON

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Listen good people of MSE for i require your learned assistance on a matter that has troubled me for some time and for which i cannot obtain an answer amongst my peer group which satisfies me.

I am prepared to admit i may be deficient in understanding in this area.

Now consulting Government data we can see that around 140,000 new builds are completed in the UK each year.

In the year 2015-2016 there were 189,650 nett additional homes produced in the UK. That takes into account the reduction due to demolitions so it is a truer figure.

Now then, the troubling question is,,who is buying them? More to the point, if there were 189,650 new properties available in 2015-16, where did all those people come from.? They cant all be homeless living in boxes as most would not be able to afford a new home although of course some will be social housing/rented.

Is it all truly down to mass immigration?

the UK population is growing by about 600,000 per year
half of this is the (net) migration and the other half 'natural' growth

In addition, many people are living in accommodation that they consider too small : these would move to larger accommation if they could afford to.

In downtown Manchester there are skyscraper blocks going up all over the place. On the borders of Manchester and Salford, there are mega construction projects going on, building truly huge tower blocks of flats,,mostly funded by Chinese investment companies. The scale of them is unprecedented in Manchester.

Again,who is buying them all? I suspect a lot is big commerical companies buying them up to let out at fierce rates.

As an aside, there was a news feature on tv the other day about Urban spash who were championing a new developement of factory built /site assembled homes. I have long thought that the era of men gluing clods of clay together on some windswept site is so outmoded and inefficient. But i will bet that Urban spash arent selling them cheaper ,oh no, they are simply increasing their profit margin.

As a visionary, i also have a double edged plan to solve the UK housing problem AND the rise in obesity at a stroke.

Henceforth HM government should legislate to ensure that in future, ALL new build houses shall be detached and comprise at least 3 storeys, i.e ground,1st,2nd. There is plenty of space in the sky ,a lower footprint, and plenty of excercise built in.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/568403/Housing_Supply_England_2015-16.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/502930/House_Building_Release_Dec_Qtr_2015.pdf

I'm not sure that London is big enough for all properties to be detached nor do I see the benefit, unless you mean flats.

westernpromise

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Henceforth HM government should legislate to ensure that in future, ALL new build houses shall be detached and comprise at least 3 storeys, i.e ground,1st,2nd. There is plenty of space in the sky ,a lower footprint, and plenty of excercise built in.

Would be completely out of keeping with the existing construction, frankly, so except where you're redeveloping a large area such as Docklands or more recently Paddington Basin or Kings Cross, it would look out of place.

However, I would support two storey houses that started on the third storey. They'd be four storeys high but the house would be on piles two storeys high, like this:
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/low-angle-view-of-traditional-stilt-house-at-pond-against-sky-picture-id536934765?s=170667a

This would sort those fatties out and you can have a garden underneath, though you have to watch out for the likes of toastie sleeping rough under your house because life's so tough if you're not a boomer.

C_Mababejive

CLAPTON wrote: »

the UK population is growing by about 600,000 per year
half of this is the (net) migration and the other half 'natural' growth

In addition, many people are living in accommodation that they consider too small : these would move to larger accommation if they could afford to.




I'm not sure that London is big enough for all properties to be detached nor do I see the benefit, unless you mean flats.

Yes i just had a read and its true, a lot has to do with nett migration. Presumably most are wealthy enough to pay our high house prices or else a good proportion of the new constructions every year are in the rented or social housing sector?
My plan for 3 story detached houses would of course be new build so they would all be in keeping with the general area. Clearly refurbs and new builds amongat existing property would have to fit with planning regs and be in keeping with the locale.

I was thinking of the UK in general and not just London.

I think the UK house buying populace does need to aspire to better. We live in the smallest, most expensive homes in most of the developed world and we are enslaved all our lives to pay for them. I guess thats what our masters desire?

CLAPTON

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Yes i just had a read and its true, a lot has to do with nett migration. Presumably most are wealthy enough to pay our high house prices or else a good proportion of the new constructions every year are in the rented or social housing sector?

sarcasm is a poor persuader : stupidity is even worse.

every idiot knows that most immigrants are young and poor
every idiot knows they usually live in multi-occupier rented property
every idiot knows they don't buy a property the day they arrive.
every idiot knows that property businesses provide the funds to buy an increasing percentage of our property to provide the multi-occupied rented property.

My plan for 3 story detached houses would of course be new build so they would all be in keeping with the general area. Clearly refurbs and new builds amongat existing property would have to fit with planning regs and be in keeping with the locale.

I was thinking of the UK in general and not just London.

I think the UK house buying populace does need to aspire to better. We live in the smallest, most expensive homes in most of the developed world and we are enslaved all our lives to pay for them. I guess thats what our masters desire?

no idea what this nonsense means

GreatApe

Lots of new homes are needed to meet demographic changes. For instance in 1980 to 1983 the UK population was totally flat no population growth. Maybe the initial thought would be with no additional people we would need no additional homes. However what happened was that nearly 1 million additional homes were built and people moved into them due to changing demographics.

The UK needs some 4.5 million homes over the next 30 years even if the population stays completely flat. That is +150,000 homes a year ever single year just to meet demographic changes. More divorce more widows more old age persons etc who live at 1 or 2 a house and less families who love at 4-5 a house

GreatApe

Your second point about construction methods is important but the UK is so so far behind that it's not even on the long range radar.

Housing should move to prefabricated steel/glass towers for high density and prefabricated steel/cement/glass/wood for low rise.

Some interesting developments in roofing were slate or tile or asphalt tile is replaced by toughened glass printed tiles (very strong like the windshield of a car). These are meant to look better last a lifetime and be cheaper and have less mass. Sounds perhaps trivial but a roof costs about £15k or 10% of a house halving the material and install costs cuts 5% off the cost of a house. Aim for similar savings in walls and foundations and things start to add up to significant savings.

The primary aim in most manufacturing (especially cars) is to maximise throughout (improve the factory) and minimise the material costs primarily through using less. Doing those gets fantastic results like $100 cellphones that are as powerful as the best computers of a decade ago.

With housing we don't have that we have the opposite houses that weigh more (regulations) and take 6-12 months to glue together with mortar. A fully modular steel/glass prefab that can be bolted together in 48 hours with cheap quick screw foundations.

westernpromise

Technically the tenants of my rented properties (there have been four over the years but I'm down to one now) have all been immigrants, but they've been immigrants from places like Spain, Germany, and Japan and they've worked in the City.

Cornucopia

Although it's theoretically possible that "the market" is building new properties that are unsuitable for the majority of people who want them, that seems unlikely. In practice, anyone who is actually homeless would take an unsuitable "luxury apartment" over nothing, as long as it was affordable.

Whilst it's true that there are figures out there for builds, total properties and homelessness, the truth is that the number of truly destitute individuals is tiny (the last figure I saw was c. 5000) - suggesting that more is at stake (mental health issues, for example) than simply the practical lack of accommodation.

What makes up the majority of the "homeless" figure is people in unsuitable or short-term accommodation, or those where multiple households are living together for want of a better option. Homelessness as we measure it has a high degree of elasticity, and it doesn't necessarily focus on an actual shortage of homes in any meaningful sense.

At the same time, the UK house-building industry and its supporting bureaucracy seem to be painfully slow and conservative in their thinking. There are already plentiful designs for a wide variety of eco-builds of various sorts. These are often pre-fabricated or quick-build technologies, meaning that entire estates could be built in weeks rather than years, and at the same time, potentially vacated, moved and/or removed at a point in the future where they were no longer needed.

CLAPTON

Cornucopia wrote: »

Although it's theoretically possible that "the market" is building new properties that are unsuitable for the majority of people who want them, that seems unlikely. In practice, anyone who is actually homeless would take an unsuitable "luxury apartment" over nothing, as long as it was affordable.

Whilst it's true that there are figures out there for builds, total properties and homelessness, the truth is that the number of truly destitute individuals is tiny (the last figure I saw was c. 5000) - suggesting that more is at stake (mental health issues, for example) than simply the practical lack of accommodation.

What makes up the majority of the "homeless" figure is people in unsuitable or short-term accommodation, or those where multiple households are living together for want of a better option. Homelessness as we measure it has a high degree of elasticity, and it doesn't necessarily focus on an actual shortage of homes in any meaningful sense.

At the same time, the UK house-building industry and its supporting bureaucracy seem to be painfully slow and conservative in their thinking. There are already plentiful designs for a wide variety of eco-builds of various sorts. These are often pre-fabricated or quick-build technologies, meaning that entire estates could be built in weeks rather than years, and at the same time, potentially vacated, moved and/or removed at a point in the future where they were no longer needed.

I have zero knowledge of the building technology etc but find it difficult to credit there is significant off the shelf building technology that is substantially cheaper. I have indeed seen TV programs of pre-fabricated systems over the last 30-40 years but most seem to come to nothing. If it really were cheaper and quicker why hasn't some-one made their fortune by using it?

beecher2

Some of you might be interested in this - Social Bite are planning to build 10 eco friendly homes for the homeless
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/24/scottish-homelessness-charity-social-bite-village-low-cost-eco-homes-edinburgh