In a decade or 2 we will be a nation of renters with only the wealthiest of Brits owning homes whilst the rest will be paying rent to British landlords with property portfolios, and overseas investors who will likely never even set foot in the houses they own and just see them as investments/ pension funds.
It's bad enough with the monstrous tower block apartments that are permitted to sit empty/ under capacity in central London because the owners will happily enjoy the perpetual capital appreciation but it's bordering on criminal when it comes to bog standard housing for the average British citizen as is happening now and has been for a long while.
I'd say that's already happened for pretty much everyone under 35. Something will have to give eventually, but we have politicians dedicated to keeping the bubble growing and growing.
The best thing that happened to me was being born in the mid-70s rather than the mid-90s or even the mid-80s.
The only way to make housing more affordable is to increase salaries significantly across the piece, or put things in place to artificially reduce the price of existing stock. Neither is likely to happen anytime soon. Restricting foreign ownership is required, but politicians, particularly the blue ones, are unlikely to take steps that reduce foreign 'investment' in Britain. The house market is going the same way as what is left of British industry.
There's no proper definition of affordable housing in planning terms. It varies from planning authority to planning authority. The policy in London is basically that 50% of new housing should be affordable. 70% of that should be socially rented either by the Council or much more usually by a Registered Social Landlord. The other 30% should be available for shared ownership aimed at households with incomes of (from memory) around £20k to £60k.
For years developers wriggled out of affordable housing obligations by claiming development would not be viable if policy compliant levels were required. That's been cracked down on and it's now hard to get away with less than 50% in London.
Three thirty storey tower blocks. They also want to put a 15 storey tower block opposite the Tigers Heads at Lee Green. When I went there to the ‘exhibition’ for the (much needed) development and asked every representative what exactly was the price of an ‘affordable home’, nobody could answer, but every person took my contact details and promised to get back to me, or get in touch. It hasn’t happened of course. I asked them to relate affordability to the wage of a senior nurse in Lewisham Hospital, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. The closest I came to any honesty was one Galliard representative letting slip that affordability was related to profitability for them. Locally we have the nouveau Ferrier that sells matchboxes for half a million each, and central Lewisham now resembling New York where by all accounts the high rise flats have endless problems with lifts and services. Affordable homes huh?
Often wondered how 'affordable housing' was defined, as it usually seems anything but! How can you define 'affordable' by the developers' profit??
If you take £25k as an average salary and a 4.5 multiplier, you get £112.5k. Add say a 20% deposit gets you to £135k. Even two 25k salaries and a 2.5 multiplier only gets to £150k with the same deposit. Surely a cost of around £150k is therefore 'affordable' for a small 2 bed flat, as applied to an average salary. Which is not unreasonable if you consider the Thatcher principle of the masses owning their own homes instead of renting. I know modern mortgages allow higher multipliers and terms longer than the traditional 25 years, but this is surely down to low interest rates over the last 25 or so years? But you can't predict future interest rates and they were well into double figures 30+ years ago.
I also seem to recall at least one south London council stating death of high rise housing when they started to demolish some of the notorious high rise estates? Think the reasons given included poor design, vandalism and unsocial behaviour and the difficulties in controlling the last two in a high rise setting. So what has changed policywise if so many towers are now being built? Apart from developers' profit? I can see living on the 30th floor might be nice for a single person or couple, but add two small kids, pushchairs and a broken lift and the fun will disappear quickly! Assume some of these towers will house families? Irrespective of my points above, the no doubt 'world beating' British housing policy is broken beyond repair and the helpline to get it fixed is constantly engaged!
Ironically, the South London council that demolished loads of tower blocks was Lewisham. If you look at photos of 70s New Cross, there are 9 tower blocks on Milton Court (the estate between the two railway lines). There's one now. I think the idea is that private tower blocks charge higher rents and service charges so in theory the lifts won't break down and they can tell who pissed on the stairs. While that may be the case for the very top end, I don't think it will be sustainable with incomes stagnating or falling here. At the risk of getting political, the govt are in the pocket of big house builders and construction firms - and won't do anything to rock that particular boat. (It's not just housing that's a victim of this, HS2 is not really a transport project, it's a construction project that has some trains attached).
It's bad enough with the monstrous tower block apartments that are permitted to sit empty/ under capacity in central London because the owners will happily enjoy the perpetual capital appreciation but it's bordering on criminal when it comes to bog standard housing for the average British citizen as is happening now and has been for a long while.
I'd introduce a special "Keep your property empty" council tax rate - call it band X - where it's owned by someone with no intention of living there or renting it out. Make it 1000 times regular council tax, so they end up paying over a million a year to keep it empty, then watch this problem disappear.
It's bad enough with the monstrous tower block apartments that are permitted to sit empty/ under capacity in central London because the owners will happily enjoy the perpetual capital appreciation but it's bordering on criminal when it comes to bog standard housing for the average British citizen as is happening now and has been for a long while.
I'd introduce a special "Keep your property empty" council tax rate - call it band X - where it's owned by someone with no intention of living there or renting it out. Make it 1000 times regular council tax, so they end up paying over a million a year to keep it empty, then watch this problem disappear.
It's bad enough with the monstrous tower block apartments that are permitted to sit empty/ under capacity in central London because the owners will happily enjoy the perpetual capital appreciation but it's bordering on criminal when it comes to bog standard housing for the average British citizen as is happening now and has been for a long while.
I'd introduce a special "Keep your property empty" council tax rate - call it band X - where it's owned by someone with no intention of living there or renting it out. Make it 1000 times regular council tax, so they end up paying over a million a year to keep it empty, then watch this problem disappear.
What a great idea.
Had to double check you weren't quoting the post before your one.
Comments
The best thing that happened to me was being born in the mid-70s rather than the mid-90s or even the mid-80s.
Restricting foreign ownership is required, but politicians, particularly the blue ones, are unlikely to take steps that reduce foreign 'investment' in Britain. The house market is going the same way as what is left of British industry.
For years developers wriggled out of affordable housing obligations by claiming development would not be viable if policy compliant levels were required. That's been cracked down on and it's now hard to get away with less than 50% in London.
I think the idea is that private tower blocks charge higher rents and service charges so in theory the lifts won't break down and they can tell who pissed on the stairs. While that may be the case for the very top end, I don't think it will be sustainable with incomes stagnating or falling here.
At the risk of getting political, the govt are in the pocket of big house builders and construction firms - and won't do anything to rock that particular boat. (It's not just housing that's a victim of this, HS2 is not really a transport project, it's a construction project that has some trains attached).