One Million Council Houses per year.

[apelike]

 

What is preventing the house building we need?

 

The political will to finance more affordable social housing. With private sales building more will lower the prices due to a greater supply, and as stated earlier can create negative equity. You only have to look at Ireland's property bubble to see what can happen when too many private homes are built too quickly.

 

In Sheffield many thousands of council homes were demolished by SCC and never replaced, yet they try and blame that shortage of social housing on the RTB.

[tzijlstra]

Do you think it could help to fund councils with something other than a local property value tax?

It may be providing a perverse incentive.

 

How is local government funded for example in Germany?

 

Yes it will, councils need to be allowed to make a profit on developing new projects which can then be utilised for local services. There is no personal gain, there is a community gain in that situation.

 

I don't know the precise situation in Germany, but when I was active in local politics in the Netherlands I was following all the proposals for a project to develop a whole new neighbourhood in Zuidhorn. If you follow this link you can see that to the Northeast of the town the road N355 has been moved (it used to run more or less straight on, roughly where Atlasstraat is now). The reason for this was that the old bridge was in need of replacement, so together with the province (Who funded the new bridge) a plan was designed to move the road to the location of the new bridge (the eastern one over the canal) which allowed the council to develop the land inside the new loop.

 

If you click on Earth you can see how much development there has been in the past 3 years and that whole site is going to continue to fill up to meet the need.

 

The council is able to build the infrastructure for the new neighbourhood because it bought the land at development price (a bit more than the agricultural value/existing property value) and sold it at developed price, with all the services and infrastructure in place.

 

To do so the council took on a loan from a government funded development bank. Because the whole project has been costed top to bottom and an analysis of the market showed a significant need for more housing in the area, the council runs little risk and every year runs a small profit on the development. This profit in the past three years has been used to redevelop the town-centre as well as provide some social housing, particularly for the elderly as there was a great need for that, it did that in collaboration with a health-insurance company who announced a need to develop a 200 place care home in the area, so as with the road it was developed in collaboration with a partner.

[unbeliever]

The political will to finance more affordable social housing. With private sales building more will lower the prices due to a greater supply, and as stated earlier can create negative equity. You only have to look at Ireland's property bubble to see what can happen when too many private homes are built too quickly.

 

In Sheffield many thousands of council homes were demolished by SCC and never replaced, yet they try and blame that shortage of social housing on the RTB.

 

I don't see the difference.

The negative equity problem is a risk when the supply of housing increases whether the state builds them or whether they're built by somebody else.

[apelike]

I don't see the difference.

The negative equity problem is a risk when the supply of housing increases whether the state builds them or whether they're built by somebody else.

 

If the state builds them for rent as in social housing then the private house market will hardly be affected but when lots of private homes are built the market value of private homes will dip. There needs to be a big increase in social housing and a slow increase in private housing to keep a balance and people happy.

 

One problem, or advantage, with building lots of social housing is that private landlords may then be forced to sell up as renting them out may not be as profitable as it is now. That also means more private homes for sale.

 

Average mortgage around £150 PW, average private rent £120 PW, average Housing Association rent £80 PW average Council rent £70 PW.

[unbeliever]

If the state builds them for rent as in social housing then the private house market will hardly be affected but when lots of private homes are built the market value of private homes will dip. There needs to be a big increase in social housing and a slow increase in private housing to keep a balance and people happy.

 

One problem, or advantage, with building lots of social housing is that private landlords may then be forced to sell up as renting them out may not be as profitable as it is now. That also means more private homes for sale.

 

Average mortgage around £150 PW, average private rent £120 PW, average Housing Association rent £80 PW average Council rent £70 PW.

 

The average house is more valuable than the average rented property since people of greater means tend to buy. Your figures are misleading.

 

More supply means lower prices. Doesn't matter how the supply comes about.

If you want to avoid negative equity (which I certainly do), just don't overdo it.

 

It's become perfectly clear that government planning regulations (mostly environmentally driven) are responsible for high house prices. Deregulation is all that is needed. If the state starts building low end houses without subsidy, what you'll find them doing is ignoring/overriding their own planning regulations.

[truman]

If the state builds them for rent as in social housing then the private house market will hardly be affected.

 

You're increasing the supply of housing by a huge factor (using chemists's numbers) the private housing market is bound to be affected,even if it's just by there being fewer private landlords looking to buy..

[danny12]

Local citizens' objections to planning applications?

I doubt that.

 

Why doubt it, most of the land that isn't already built over is on the outskirts of cities and in rural locations, according to another topic these are the locations in which people are happiest, surrounding them with more houses isn't going to make them happier, it will actuality spoil their happiness so they very likley object when planning applications are submitted. Put yourself in their shoes, you buy an house with a nice view in a quiet area, would you be happy for that view and tranquility to be destroyed by an housing development? I know I wouldn't.

[unbeliever]

Why doubt it, most of the land that isn't already built over is on the outskirts of cities and in rural locations, according to another topic these are the locations in which people are happiest, surrounding them with more houses isn't going to make them happier, it will actuality spoil their happiness so they very likley object when planning applications are submitted. Put yourself in their shoes, you buy an house with a nice view in a quiet area, would you be happy for that view and tranquility to be destroyed by an housing development? I know I wouldn't.

 

I don't doubt that people would object.

I doubt that their objections would carry any weight with the state.

[danny12]

I don't doubt that people would object.

I doubt that their objections would carry any weight with the state.

 

They do object and planning department do take notice, its one of the primory reasons for planning application being turned down.

 

Its why the government is proposing the removal the public's right to object to planning applications.

[apelike]

The average house is more valuable than the average rented property since people of greater means tend to buy. Your figures are misleading.

 

More supply means lower prices. Doesn't matter how the supply comes about. If you want to avoid negative equity (which I certainly do), just don't overdo it.

 

A greater supply of social rented property has little effect on private house prices and there are plenty of people already willing to rent and not buy. Its that lack of that supply that's the problem. Private house prices change when there is a lack or over supply of private sales, and as you say its people of greater means that tend to buy.

 

 

It's become perfectly clear that government planning regulations (mostly environmentally driven) are responsible for high house prices. Deregulation is all that is needed. If the state starts building low end houses without subsidy, what you'll find them doing is ignoring/overriding their own planning regulations.

 

What is needed is similar to what tzijlstra was saying about the Netherlands in that councils should be able to take on a loan from a government funded development bank. Its similar to what happened in the UK when social housing was at its peak and at a time when people were happy to rent and not buy.

 

But.. Their government is Lib/Lab and more socialist than ours.

 

---------- Post added 15-09-2015 at 12:53 ----------

 

You're increasing the supply of housing by a huge factor (using chemists's numbers) the private housing market is bound to be affected,even if it's just by there being fewer private landlords looking to buy..

 

The government are already changing the tax breaks for private landlords and rent to buys so fewer will be the norm anyway.

Edited September 15, 2015 by apelike