The housing crisis (London and beyond)

[likesfish]

it could be done we can still do hard things we just need to build a fuck more council housing train a load more builders to build the house they are going to live in it's not actually a unique thing if we could do it in the 1950s surely the 21st century it should be easier.
we basically have politicions who have lost there balls.

 

[bcuster]

London's key challenges in 2024 - and how to tackle them

What are going to be some of the major issues for Londoners in 2024 and what changes do we need to tackle them? Our partners reflect on the housing crisis, migration, social security and employment rights in 2024.

trustforlondon.org.uk

 

[Dystopiary]

Amnesty UK are saying:

31% of children aged four and under are admitted to hospital each year with respiratory conditions caused or exacerbated by damp & mould.

34 children died between April 2019 & March 2022 with homelessness & temporary accommodation factors contributing to their vulnerability, ill health or death.

29% of children in the UK are living in poverty.

90% of low-income households on Universal Credit are without essentials.

View attachment 414417

Also:

100,000 more households living in temporary accommodation
- a 5% increase (year-on-year at the end of 2022).

A 26% increase in number of people rough sleeping
(year-on-year at the end of 2022).

A 37% increase (3 million) parcels distributed by the Trussel Trust to food banks
(year-on-year 21/22 to 22/23).

Before Our Eyes: Short Film with Olivia Colman & Adrian Lester

According to this ITV report, homelessness and temporary accommodation have contributed to the unexpected deaths of at least 55 children in England.

The data, compiled by the National Child Mortality Database, shows the majority of those who died were babies under the age of one.

Note that this data therefore doesn't include the rest of the UK, nor does it include deaths from unsafe housing that isn't considered to be temporary.

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-04...ve-died-in-temporary-accommodation-since-2019

 

[bcuster]

London is crying out for more homes –here’s how the next mayor can build them​

MSN

London is in a housing crisis. The boom the city has experienced over the past three decades has seen the number of jobs rocket by 62 per cent and its population grow by 2m.

 

[bcuster]

Watch The UK Tonight: Inside the country’s social housing crisis​

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1vAGRvdQZPZGl

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Article from the Guardian although I'm not sure there's enough detail to say it's a solution. Much of the arguments refers back to a different time, is it still achievable?
The End of Landlords

 

[Tulster218]

NIMBYs are the problem. If everyone agreed to stop complaining about new developments then we could build more, and the prices would come down. The root of the problem of the shortage of housing, and high cost of housing, is ordinary people’s attitude to new development. If we could change that then we could solve the problem. Demonising landlords and builders doesn’t address the issue. Demand side reforms such as ‘affordable housing’, ‘social housing’, ‘key worker housing’ just prioritises some people over others.

 

[editor]

NIMBYs are the problem. If everyone agreed to stop complaining about new developments then we could build more, and the prices would come down. The root of the problem of the shortage of housing, and high cost of housing, is ordinary people’s attitude to new development. If we could change that then we could solve the problem. Demonising landlords and builders doesn’t address the issue. Demand side reforms such as ‘affordable housing’, ‘social housing’, ‘key worker housing’ just prioritises some people over others.

It's got fuck all to do with NIMBYs and everything to do with the legacy of Thatcher's council housing sell-off; ruthless, greedy developers; lax planning; shit, underfunded councils and evil exploitative landlords.

In a mere four decades, Margaret Thatcher’s flagship initiative, forcing councils to sell off public housing at huge discounts, has seen two-thirds of British council homes privatised. City halls across the country are now on the brink of insolvency, in large part due to the enormous cost of having to provide temporary accommodation without enough council-owned homes left to go round.

It’s not just historic flats from Britain’s postwar housebuilding boom that are being sold. Brand new council houses are also going under the hammer, almost as fast as they are being built. Design blog Dezeen revealed this month that seven of Norwich’s newest council homes are already in the process of being sold off, fewer than five years after they were completed. Other authorities have also been forced to sell their new council homes, such as Hackney in east London, which has already lost some of the social housing it built in Stoke Newington in 2018.

Councils now sell off more houses than they build. Thatcher’s legacy, right to buy, is a failure

 

[Tulster218]

In another thread I said If we built more housing in London we could have [cheap housing] here too. Price depends on supply and demand, not landlords being vampires or whatever.

Only if the new builds are socially owned and/or at least rent controlled. Otherwise what do you think will happen to them?

Landlordism is the root of housing prices in a free market, not number of houses.

And if we can introduce rent controls in theory in such a scenario, any reason why it couldn’t be done without building more houses?

The interaction of the risk-free rate and the amount people will pay to have somewhere to live is what determines the price. The demand side of the supply demand equation includes the demand of landlords.

If we build new houses then someone will live in them. That's how it works. You don't get to decide who lives where.

Rent controls don't work. They've failed everywhere they've been tried.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Except for all those houses/flats that don't have people living in them of course.

 

[DotCommunist]

looks interesting:

Against Landlords

Housing means prosperity and security for some; poverty, precarity and sickness for others. More people live in private rented accommodation than ever before, and rents rise without apparent reason. Homes are smaller every year, and nearly 20 per cent of tenants live in hazardous conditions...

www.versobooks.com

 

[Tulster218]

From another thread:

And when landlords snap up loads of properties then that reduces the supply and pushes prices up.

No. The supply stays exactly the same. Tenants move from tenure to tenure, from rented to owner occupied and back again, from social housing to rented etc. More housing is more housing. It doesn't matter the size or the tenure.

 

[DotCommunist]

Rent controls don't work. They've failed everywhere they've been tried.

does vienna mean nothing to you? oooooh

 

[Tulster218]

From another thread:

Uncontrolled building across London would be an environmental disaster in the long run and would simply create the slums of the future.

It would be better for the environment if we all went to live in caves, but the trade offs aren't worth it. There are better ways to save the environment than having five people live in a two bedroom flat.

 

[Tulster218]

does vienna mean nothing to you? oooooh

In 2021 Vienna built 18,000 properties, in a City of 2m people. If you scale that up to London that's the equivalent of 81,000 new homes annually. That's about three or four times what we do at the moment. So, yes Vienna is a good example of what we could do with a bit less NIMBYism.

 

[WouldBe]

From another thread:




No. The supply stays exactly the same. Tenants move from tenure to tenure, from rented to owner occupied and back again, from social housing to rented etc. More housing is more housing. It doesn't matter the size or the tenure.

No because if houses aren't available to buy it pushes the prices up. You'd never get anywhere near the £65k Bradford house prices if greedy landlords keep buying up property in bulk.

 

[Tulster218]

It's got fuck all to do with NIMBYs and everything to do with the legacy of Thatcher's council housing sell-off; ruthless, greedy developers; lax planning; shit, underfunded councils and evil exploitative landlords.



Councils now sell off more houses than they build. Thatcher’s legacy, right to buy, is a failure

Oh yes, greedy landlords! It's always greedy landlords.

 

[editor]

Oh yes, greedy landlords! It's always greedy landlords.

View attachment 417369

Yes, greedy landlords. Brixton is full of them.

Housing charity Shelter says that almost 1.1 million private renters had their rent increased in the last month alone. One in three of them are now spending at least half of their household income on rent. Of the 3.5 million private tenants that had their rent increased over the last year, more than 800,000 saw it rise by more than £100 a month, and nearly 200,000 were hit with a rise of more than £300 a month. Some 2.5 million renters are now either behind or constantly struggling to pay their rent—that’s up by 45 -percent since April

Most landlords finance their property empires with buy-to-let mortgages or other forms of lending. They are now trying to recover their rising costs, and more besides, by upping rents at a phenomenal rate. Even the minority of landlords that use their own capital to buy houses for rent are joining in as the market goes into a frenzy.

Greedy landlords cash-in on crisis with huge rent rises - Socialist Worker

Millions of renters face crisis as property spivs try to recoup the cost of rising mortgage interest rates by upping rents

socialistworker.co.uk

Poor tenants pay for landlords to live like kings. It doesn’t have to be this way | George Monbiot

Britain has enough housing – it’s just that a series of outrageous policies makes it accessible only to the rich, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

 

[editor]

In 2021 Vienna built 18,000 properties, in a City of 2m people. If you scale that up to London that's the equivalent of 81,000 new homes annually. That's about three or four times what we do at the moment. So, yes Vienna is a good example of what we could do with a bit less NIMBYism.

There's an estimated 30,000 long-term empty homes across London.

Mayor of London and Westminster City Council call for stronger powers to crack down on long-term empty properties in London

The Mayor and Westminster City Council are today calling for stronger powers to crack down on empty homes, as shocking new analysis by City Hall reveals an estimated £20bn worth of property is sitting vacant across the capital.

www.london.gov.uk

 

[Tulster218]

No because if houses aren't available to buy it pushes the prices up. You'd never get anywhere near the £65k Bradford house prices if greedy landlords keep buying up property in bulk.

So Landlords in Bradford are less greedy?

If there were more properties then tenants could leave and go somewhere else. Landlords can only raise rents if tenants have nowhere else to go.

 

[Tulster218]

There's an estimated 30,000 long-term empty homes across London.

Mayor of London and Westminster City Council call for stronger powers to crack down on long-term empty properties in London

The Mayor and Westminster City Council are today calling for stronger powers to crack down on empty homes, as shocking new analysis by City Hall reveals an estimated £20bn worth of property is sitting vacant across the capital.

www.london.gov.uk

Another myth. The UK has less empty housing than most OECD countries.

 

[editor]

So Landlords in Bradford are less greedy?

What?

 

[editor]

Another myth. The UK has less empty housing than most OECD countries.

View attachment 417372

It's not a myth. Its a fact. Whether other countries have more or less empty properties is utterly irrelevant.

 

[A380]

NIMBYs are the problem. If everyone agreed to stop complaining about new developments then we could build more, and the prices would come down. The root of the problem of the shortage of housing, and high cost of housing, is ordinary people’s attitude to new development. If we could change that then we could solve the problem. Demonising landlords and builders doesn’t address the issue. Demand side reforms such as ‘affordable housing’, ‘social housing’, ‘key worker housing’ just prioritises some people over others.

Bollocks is it. Whilst multifaceted one of the key problems is the cartel of large house builders buying up almost all the land with development permission ( or likely to get permission) then sitting on it for years to stop smaller developers getting a look in. It’s like the diamond industry, prices raised by manufacturing scarcity. But with less sparkly pretty things and more jerry built five ‘bedroom’ rabbit hutches…

 

[Tulster218]

It's not a myth. Its a fact. Whether other countries have more or less empty properties is utterly irrelevant.

The number of empty properties in England is very low, and a trivial part of the supply problem. The answer is to build more houses.

 

[klang]

So, yes Vienna is a good example of what we could do with a bit less NIMBYism

LOL at there being fewer NIMBYs in Vienna

 

[Tulster218]

Bollocks is it. Whilst multifaceted one of the key problems is the cartel of large house builders buying up almost all the land with development permission ( or likely to get permission) then sitting on it for years to stop smaller developers getting a look in. It’s like the diamond industry, prices raised by manufacturing scarcity. But with less sparkly pretty things and more jerry built five ‘bedroom’ rabbit hutches…

There's no shortage of land. We have built on about 8.6% of the UK. There's plenty left.

Huge planning delays mean developers need to hold large amounts of land in a pipeline.

Source

 

[Tulster218]

LOL at there being fewer NIMBYs in Vienna

That's not what I said, but laugh all you want, although Vienna is a YIMBY paradise according to this podcaster.

If we had less NIMBY attitudes we could build as much housing as Vienna. There's no reason we couldn't. It just needs normal people to understand the issue.

 

[A380]

….

Massive greed and a desire to stamp out new entrants to the market mean developers need to hold large amounts of land in a pipeline.
…

FTFY

 

[Tulster218]

FTFY

No. It's easy just to keep saying developers are greedy, but how do you account for housing being so much less expensive in the north than in the south east. It's not because all of the developers up north kind and generous.

And why do you think property developers would be more greedy in the UK than in other countries.

It's much easier to blame boogeyman than to admit that you're wrong.