New housing white paper

padington

Talks of incentivising Landlords for 3-5 year contracts with promises to make all housing 'more affordable'. Also talks of punishing bad landlords more and people sitting on land which could be developed and general Aim to end to increasd owner occupation with all new effort to build property's to rent.

All 'properties more affordable' sounds like a significant change in policy to lower house prices. Could all be as seems given the economic consenquenses of removing equity from current owners and disincentivising any new owner occupiers because of focusing on helping middle classes now to rent instead of to buy?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

This is just more government waffle as the Tory party is incapable of overcoming it's home counties constituents opposition to building anything anywhere ever.

The original proposals called for mass house building on the greenbelt which would actually solve the housing crisis - but was politically impossible for the Tories to deliver.

This has now been watered down to encourage long term renting via more secure tenancies in an attempt to placate Generation Rent - and more brown-belt development (yawn) - which will do nothing to solve the actual problem but may keep the renters placated for a few more years.

More short-termism from Mayhem.

CLAPTON

we need to increase immigration to a couple (at least) of million a year
we know immigrants don't require housing but they are net contributors to the economy : so use the free money to build for the existing population.

ProDave

So first the government punishes private landlords with extra land tax and changed to the tax allowances THEN they publish a white paper to try and encourager private landlords.

You could not make it up.

vivatifosi

I think they are trying to attract institutional landlords, largely from the likes of pension funds (at least that's what was said on one of the politics shows this morning).

theEnd

vivatifosi wrote: »

I think they are trying to attract institutional landlords, largely from the likes of pension funds (at least that's what was said on one of the politics shows this morning).

I thought pension funds weren't allowed to invest in residential housing (or is it just individuals)?

vivatifosi

I think they are looking at institutional funds. I am a trustee of a FS scheme, and we do have property investments, but these are in commercial property. To make it work, they would need to find a way round property being pretty illiquid as an investment.

GreatApe

The reason renting has boomed over the last 10 years is that those who work in the black economy could get a mortgage and buy a house pre 2008 via self cert mortgages. Now they cannot. With a stoke of the pen the regulators took away the ability for some 3 million households (the black economy is estimated to be ~10% of GDP) to obtain mortgages and buy homes.

And guess what, almost ten years later we now have almost 3 million additional rented households

I believe that is the primary reason but the government either dont know or dont care.
Personally I would bring self cert back and let the people in the black/grey economy have access to owning housing rather than renting.

As evidence I present the fact that renting has boomed even in the cheapest regions of the country

CLAPTON

GreatApe wrote: »

The reason renting has boomed over the last 10 years is that those who work in the black economy could get a mortgage and buy a house pre 2008 via self cert mortgages. Now they cannot. With a stoke of the pen the regulators took away the ability for some 3 million households (the black economy is estimated to be ~10% of GDP) to obtain mortgages and buy homes.

And guess what, almost ten years later we now have almost 3 million additional rented households

I believe that is the primary reason but the government either dont know or dont care.
Personally I would bring self cert back and let the people in the black/grey economy have access to owning housing rather than renting.

As evidence I present the fact that renting has boomed even in the cheapest regions of the country

i'm sure the access to finance is a significant factor but so is an increase in population of 4 - 5 million

GreatApe

CLAPTON wrote: »

i'm sure the access to finance is a significant factor but so is an increase in population of 4 - 5 million

The population has gone up by 4 million over the last 10 years but there has also been almost 1.5-2 million additional homes built during that time and importantly also a significant addition of housing capacity via conversions especially HMOs. Eg I know one house that was converted to 12 bed 12 bathroom HMO. On paper no additional housing but that house has effectively gone from housing maybe 4 people to 12 people.

The primary reason imo is that the regulations pre 2008 allow the black market, about 10%-15% of the population, to buy homes and post 2008 they were locked out of the system.

Nothing else really explains why you can have some parts of England, eg the north, with prices that are the same in nominal terms as a decade ago and 1/3rd off that in real terms yet renting is higher now than then. It is clearly not the brute simple price else the north would have seen a major jump in ownership.

CLAPTON

GreatApe wrote: »

The population has gone up by 4 million over the last 10 years but there has also been almost 1.5-2 million additional homes built during that time and importantly also a significant addition of housing capacity via conversions especially HMOs. Eg I know one house that was converted to 12 bed 12 bathroom HMO. On paper no additional housing but that house has effectively gone from housing maybe 4 people to 12 people.

The primary reason imo is that the regulations pre 2008 allow the black market, about 10%-15% of the population, to buy homes and post 2008 they were locked out of the system.

Nothing else really explains why you can have some parts of England, eg the north, with prices that are the same in nominal terms as a decade ago and 1/3rd off that in real terms yet renting is higher now than then. It is clearly not the brute simple price else the north would have seen a major jump in ownership.

perfectly happy to accept that credit restrictions have affected the ability of some to buy
that doesn't explain why SE houses prices have increased nor rents.