The social cleansing of social housing.

[scifisam]

I think their point is we aren’t operating in a free market ( there are all sorts of rules around building houses which makes them cost more ), they are saying that this makes houses cost more.

Alex

That's bollocks though - a free market doesn't mean a completely unregulated market.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

That's bollocks though - a free market doesn't mean a completely unregulated market.

But to libertarians it does. Apart from the regulation of a police force to maintain private property “of course”.

 

[Dogsauce]

The main factor causing massive house price inflation was the decision to cut interest rates to 0.25% and inject so-called QE.

This caused an explosion in leveraged buy to let fiefdoms - even reflected in daytime TV programmes about buying dead people's houses at auction, doing them up and rack-renting them.

Most housing inflation (with perhaps the exception of London) happened before the 2008 recession, so QE/low rates aren’t really the factor. My house is still worth less than before the recession, like many in the north.

Buy to let kicked off in the late 90s when stock markets/savings accounts stopped giving the kind of returns people could live off or retire on, plus the big expansion in student numbers combined with sell-off of traditional student halls provided demand for private rented stuff that could be met by private investors. Then other people got priced out of buying and it created its own demand.

 

[CH1]

Then other people got priced out of buying and it created its own demand.

I am prepared to believe what you say about house prices nationally, I am out of touch with that.

I do think however that buy to let has forced prices up and genuine buyers (i.e. those who want to get a place to live in themselves) out of the market.

I bought my own fairly slummy terraced house for £51,000 in 1985 and yet a couple of years ago two doors down an identical house was bought for £1.3 million. Difference is that house was already sub-divided in 8 micro-flats for emergency housing cases funded by Lambeth Council.

The auctioneer's valuation was clearly based on the rental yield (5% I think). The residents are seriously overcrowded. And a Manchester based property company has bought into exploiting homeless people in Brixton, South London - and of course the council which seems content to pay rents of £700 per month per room.

 

[marty21]

I am prepared to believe what you say about house prices nationally, I am out of touch with that.

I do think however that buy to let has forced prices up and genuine buyers (i.e. those who want to get a place to live in themselves) out of the market.

I bought my own fairly slummy terraced house for £51,000 in 1985 and yet a couple of years ago two doors down an identical house was bought for £1.3 million. Difference is that house was already sub-divided in 8 micro-flats for emergency housing cases funded by Lambeth Council.

The auctioneer's valuation was clearly based on the rental yield (5% I think). The residents are seriously overcrowded. And a Manchester based property company has bought into exploiting homeless people in Brixton, South London - and of course the council which seems content to pay rents of £700 per month per room.

Emergency housing costs LAs a fortune (I work for one) we have to place some people in emergency accommodation, can't keep council accommodation free just in case so are at the mercy of sometimes unscrupulous landlords who can supply at short notice. It's shit.

 

[Dogsauce]

House two doors down from me was bought cheaply (about £100000) during recession by a landlady based in Cornwall & converted to seven bedsits (two illegally in basement) & used to house problem tenants, they were getting about three grand a month out of the place apparently, mostly from council. Had some proper dickheads living there over the years, people smashing the place up and getting evicted, loads of late night noise/trouble which kept me awake.

There was a point immediately post-recession where it was really difficult for regular buyers to get a mortgage, so cash buyer dickheads would buy up anything to be used for renting out. Some streets round my way really suffered for this.

 

[not-bono-ever]

That's bollocks though - a free market doesn't mean a completely unregulated market.

If anything, the changes in housing development regulation and more importantly, the enforcement of existing regulation, has been watered down and outsourced to third parties who have the lightest touches in issuing approvals- often without having a need to perform site visits. Combined with the ability for large corporations to use legal and financial pressure to force through approvals as local authorities do not have the means to take on a long legal battle. The local example is the Elephant and Castle project - the developer got away with virtually fuck all of the commitments it origianlly agreed to.