The Housing Crisis (UK)

Jericholyte2

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Just setting a placeholder for when messages do or do not get moved out of the Westminster thread…
 
I'm fortunate enough to live in a good area and not pay rent.

How bout you lot?
 
Just work harder, you lazy bums. We all have the same 24 hours.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
I'm fortunate enough to live in a good area and not pay rent.

How bout you lot?
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made my final mortgage payment at the start of the month and now deciding whether or not i want to get a second home.
 
rimaldo said:
made my final mortgage payment at the start of the month and now deciding whether or not i want to get a second home.
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So long as it's in affluent and like minded area, go for it.

Make sure you rent out the first home at the most premium price to pay off the mortgage for the 2nd and still leave a little extra in the pocket at the end of the month.
 
"We will not build on Suffolk's rolling hills"

1.5 million new homes.

I'm not totally sure if she knows shes lying or shes just plain thick, probably both, but neither bode well for the country.
 
Living with parents is "particularly common" among those with the lowest income, researchers said, with only 2% of the top income quintile of 25-34-year-olds doing so.
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Frosty said:
We cannot build more houses because then house prices may go down. That's basically been government policy for over 25 years.
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it’s a good system if you’ve paid off your house.
 
I just think it’s so unfair that the nanny and cleaners I pay minimum wage to to look after my lovely house might never be able to get a house of their own.
 
Massive Spanner said:
I just think it’s so unfair that the nanny and cleaners I pay minimum wage to to look after my lovely house might never be able to get a house of their own.
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agreed. i see them looking longingly at my porsche as i return from the golf club, but they should have been born 50 years ago and they could have had all this from just being a postman, like me.
 
rimaldo said:
agreed. i see them looking longingly at my porsche as i return from the golf club, but they should have been born 50 years ago and they could have had all this from just being a postman, like me.
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I just want someone to do something about it, like build more social houses, but obviously not anywhere near my own house.
 
Vidyoyo said:
Issues with cladding haven't helped because flats should help alleviate the issue but there's been so much heel-dragging causing problems for buyers and sellers
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yeah they’re a problem. i’ve got a family member who can’t sell their flat at the minute as they don’t have a certificate for the cladding on their flat. he’s had 2 sales fall through after being promised he’d have it “within days.” it’s criminal how these developers were able to chuck stuff up and how the government at the time abandoned the buyers. not to mention i leant them 15k for the deposit when they bought it, which i’d like back to spend on ivory back scratchers.
 
I’m in this boat. Feels nearly impossible if you’re on your own.

I think a big part of it is there’s no emotional investment in the issue for those already on the ladder, if anything scarcity is beneficial.

Throw NIMBYs into the mix, the terrible planning system, population growth, government finances and then take a look at some other cities that are slightly further on and it looks very grim.
 
I would recommend the book - Against Landlords by Nick Bano.

It’s a problem in many places but a unique issue in Britain is landlordism.
 
Sweet Square said:
I would recommend the book - Against Landlords by Nick Bano.

It’s a problem in many places but a unique issue in Britain is landlordism.
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The biggest problem is that for the last 40 years, people have been encouraged to invest in property to secure their retirement to the point that the economy is so intrinsically linked to house prices that it’s impossible to address the crisis without creating a different economic crisis.

As the latter economic crisis will disproportionately impact the main voting demographic there’s not a single MP with the motivation or courage to even speak about it let alone propose action.
 
rimaldo said:
agreed. i see them looking longingly at my porsche as i return from the golf club, but they should have been born 50 years ago and they could have had all this from just being a postman, like me.
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The thing is rimaldo isn't even joking. He's been my postman for years and he's genuinely loaded. In unrelated news, does anyone know why I stopped getting my syndication cheques for my hit German TV Show "Foxes Shagging" a few years ago?
 
Pexbo said:
The biggest problem is that for the last 40 years, people have been encouraged to invest in property to secure their retirement to the point that the economy is so intrinsically linked to house prices that it’s impossible to address the crisis without creating a different economic crisis.

As the latter economic crisis will disproportionately impact the main voting demographic there’s not a single MP with the motivation or courage to even speak about it let alone propose action.
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Not insignificant but a virtual absence of social and affordable housing being built since Thatcher (plus selling off and demolition of much of what we had) is probably the biggest factor that has both inflated house prices and massively inflated rents. Which of course makes being a landlord more attractive - higher rent and higher capital gain.
 
All the main problems with the housing market.

1. Lack of social housing. This means those with no hope of ever buying are generally renting in the private sector, where the state is paying their landlords buy-to-let mortgage off. There are 5 million households in the UK claiming housing benefits, 2 million of them are in private rented accommodation. Those 2 million should be in social housing, state owned properties, not privately owned properties. Why? Well for a start they pay a lot more in rent. Secondly it encourages the buy to let landlord, people buying up houses on interest only mortgages, putting them on rent to people claiming benefits, so the state is basically paying the greedy sods.

2. Buy to let. Should not exist. It's killed the affordable home market. Any tosser with a bit of equity is buying properties that young people could be using as starter homes.

3. Uncontrolled immigration. Sorry to sound like a kipper, i'm not, but immigration in the UK is very lax. 750,000 people came to the UK last year, 84,000 were asylum seekers, but close to half a million were on work visas and their dependents. I can tell you for a fact the vast majority of these are fraudulent. As we've found with covid loans, in a few years we're gonna find huge out whats happened. I know because 5 of my cousins from Pakistan have come here in the same way. How does it work? You setup a company in the UK (or have an existing company), apply for a license to sponsor workers, advertise these jobs, agents seek out migrants who want these jobs. You then sell the role to the agents. People are paying £25,000 for a visa. The company takes a cut, the agent takes a cut, and the person is promised a job. They get here in the UK, family in tow, and there is no job, no agent anymore, and the companies ignore the workers or just shut down. Of the 5 people i know, 1 has transfered his visa to a legit company and got a real job, the rest are just staying in the UK, working cash in hand (dependents can work anywhere they like legally), hoping to make back the money they've lost and hope to get someone legit to sponsor them before their 5 year visa is up.

It's a HUGE industry. The same is true of asylum seekers. Those boatloads of men coming over, nearly all economic migrants. Again i know because i have cousins who have arrived and settled in Italy in the same route. Half of punjab has come to Europe as illeagal immigrants in the last decade or so. People sell ancestoral lands to do so. They take out loans, knowing that if they work they can pay it back. I know a guy working on £60 a night in a takeaway, 6 days a week. He's taking home £360 a week cash, tax free. He's living in a shared room, paying £250 a month. He spends one weeks earnings, he sends the other 3 weeks back to Pakistan. Thats 300,000 Pakistani rupees a month. His families fortunes have turned around, meanwhile he's slumming it. His brothers who have jobs in Pakistan are earning 60-70,000 a month. For his family, selling that plot of land and taking on those loans, over 10-15 years will be a pittance compared to what he'll send back.

Also to top it all off, they aren't trained to do the jobs they apply for, the agents and sponsors coach them to give the right answers in interviews, they're practically scripted, recorded and sent to the home office as evidence of proper hiring processes being done.

What does it have to do with housing? All these victims of people trafficking have to stay somewhere. The buy to let landlord strikes again.

4. Not building enough houses in the market. Developers and landowners sit on projects, knowing the longer they hold onto it, the more profit they'll make. it's pure greed driven by the land owning class.
 
The issue has and always will be that politicians are insanely wealthy land owners and are not interested in shooting themselves in the foot by either curbing migration numbers (which increases the cost of housing) or creating easier avenues for home ownership while making it more expensive for second home owners… instead they get the tax breaks that first home owners don’t get… they also then allow business to make it so that staff have to come into the office.
 
Housing affordability is obviously a catastrophic problem in the UK.

That said, adults living with parents in itself is not a problem but a cultural thing.

Why is it a very British/American thing where adults are encouraged to move out as soon as they are 18/21?

In Asia, practically nobody moves out of their parents home until they are married. I've never heard of a single person living on their own in Asia, outside of students, whether or not they are wealthy or not.

My cousins in Eastern Europe who are married live with their partner, but all the singles live with their family.
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Housing affordability is obviously a catastrophic problem in the UK.

That said, adults living with parents in itself is not a problem but a cultural thing.

Why is it a very British/American thing where adults are encouraged to move out as soon as they are 18/21?

In Asia, practically nobody moves out of their parents home until they are married. I've never heard of a single person living on their own in Asia, outside of students, whether or not they are wealthy or not.

My cousins in Eastern Europe who are married live with their partner, but all the singles live with their family.
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I guess it also depends where the jobs and money are to some degree?
 
AfonsoAlves said:
Housing affordability is obviously a catastrophic problem in the UK.

That said, adults living with parents in itself is not a problem but a cultural thing.

Why is it a very British/American thing where adults are encouraged to move out as soon as they are 18/21?

In Asia, practically nobody moves out of their parents home until they are married. I've never heard of a single person living on their own in Asia, outside of students, whether or not they are wealthy or not.

My cousins in Eastern Europe who are married live with their partner, but all the singles live with their family.
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Yes, i agree that there is a strong cultural factor. Also, marrying age raised throuw the years, but is also true that the case of having no other option than staying with your parents had increased too. In any culture
 
Turning housing into a commodity/investment has fecked it for the poor and now even for up and coming middle earners. No government has the balls to actually fix it, as it means some of the well off (mostly boomers) losing money in property values. We need more housing and rent caps. The unaffordability is also fueling the immigration issue as young people simply can't afford to have kids.

I was lucky enough to find a decent paying job and stay at home with parents for long enough to save for a big deposit but there are millions of others in my age group who don't have that luxury. I feel really bad for the younger generation as it is only getting worse, no government is willing to regulate it or do anything to fix the issue either.
 
Mainoonited said:
All the main problems with the housing market.

1. Lack of social housing. This means those with no hope of ever buying are generally renting in the private sector, where the state is paying their landlords buy-to-let mortgage off. There are 5 million households in the UK claiming housing benefits, 2 million of them are in private rented accommodation. Those 2 million should be in social housing, state owned properties, not privately owned properties. Why? Well for a start they pay a lot more in rent. Secondly it encourages the buy to let landlord, people buying up houses on interest only mortgages, putting them on rent to people claiming benefits, so the state is basically paying the greedy sods.

2. Buy to let. Should not exist. It's killed the affordable home market. Any tosser with a bit of equity is buying properties that young people could be using as starter homes.

3. Uncontrolled immigration. Sorry to sound like a kipper, i'm not, but immigration in the UK is very lax. 750,000 people came to the UK last year, 84,000 were asylum seekers, but close to half a million were on work visas and their dependents. I can tell you for a fact the vast majority of these are fraudulent. As we've found with covid loans, in a few years we're gonna find huge out whats happened. I know because 5 of my cousins from Pakistan have come here in the same way. How does it work? You setup a company in the UK (or have an existing company), apply for a license to sponsor workers, advertise these jobs, agents seek out migrants who want these jobs. You then sell the role to the agents. People are paying £25,000 for a visa. The company takes a cut, the agent takes a cut, and the person is promised a job. They get here in the UK, family in tow, and there is no job, no agent anymore, and the companies ignore the workers or just shut down. Of the 5 people i know, 1 has transfered his visa to a legit company and got a real job, the rest are just staying in the UK, working cash in hand (dependents can work anywhere they like legally), hoping to make back the money they've lost and hope to get someone legit to sponsor them before their 5 year visa is up.

It's a HUGE industry. The same is true of asylum seekers. Those boatloads of men coming over, nearly all economic migrants. Again i know because i have cousins who have arrived and settled in Italy in the same route. Half of punjab has come to Europe as illeagal immigrants in the last decade or so. People sell ancestoral lands to do so. They take out loans, knowing that if they work they can pay it back. I know a guy working on £60 a night in a takeaway, 6 days a week. He's taking home £360 a week cash, tax free. He's living in a shared room, paying £250 a month. He spends one weeks earnings, he sends the other 3 weeks back to Pakistan. Thats 300,000 Pakistani rupees a month. His families fortunes have turned around, meanwhile he's slumming it. His brothers who have jobs in Pakistan are earning 60-70,000 a month. For his family, selling that plot of land and taking on those loans, over 10-15 years will be a pittance compared to what he'll send back.

Also to top it all off, they aren't trained to do the jobs they apply for, the agents and sponsors coach them to give the right answers in interviews, they're practically scripted, recorded and sent to the home office as evidence of proper hiring processes being done.

What does it have to do with housing? All these victims of people trafficking have to stay somewhere. The buy to let landlord strikes again.

4. Not building enough houses in the market. Developers and landowners sit on projects, knowing the longer they hold onto it, the more profit they'll make. it's pure greed driven by the land owning class.
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You find a politician who is going to address point three, especially a Labour one. Tony Blair set the blueprint for that. Plump the economy up nicely with cheap labour with a bonus that one day they might become voters, and as you were the party that let them in guess who they will vote for.


Point two, again a Tony Blair throwback. People will always plan for an income in their future. Brown killed private pensions and the UK markets off so anybody with any savings looked for alternatives. Buy to lets was the solution they found and growth subsequently increased from under 2% of the housing market in 2000 to 14% at the end of the Labour government. Provide a better alternative and landlords will happily sell up.
 
11101 said:
You find a politician who is going to address point three, especially a Labour one. Tony Blair set the blueprint for that. Plump the economy up nicely with cheap labour with a bonus that one day they might become voters, and as you were the party that let them in guess who they will vote for.


Point two, again a Tony Blair throwback. People will always plan for an income in their future. Brown killed private pensions and the UK markets off so anybody with any savings looked for alternatives. Buy to lets was the solution they found and growth subsequently increased from under 2% of the housing market in 2000 to 14% at the end of the Labour government. Provide a better alternative and landlords will happily sell up.
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Bro, all this work visa abuse flew wide open since the Tories have been in power. Labour had "free movement of people" as thier cheap labour thing, the Tories have "work visas".

The thing is there is nowhere near the demand for cheap labour, as there is supply. The rest just leads to exploitation.

I'm a partner in a local food delivery business, the food delivery sector is full of people with questionable immigration statuses and it's boosted Uber Eats profits. We pay our drivers £1.70 a mile. Uber Eats offers as low as 50p per mile.

Big business is benefiting massively from this.
 
Mainoonited said:
Bro, all this work visa abuse flew wide open since the Tories have been in power. Labour had "free movement of people" as thier cheap labour thing, the Tories have "work visas".

The thing is there is nowhere near the demand for cheap labour, as there is supply. The rest just leads to exploitation.

I'm a partner in a local food delivery business, the food delivery sector is full of people with questionable immigration statuses and it's boosted Uber Eats profits. We pay our drivers £1.70 a mile. Uber Eats offers as low as 50p per mile.

Big business is benefiting massively from this.
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That alone is proof enough that this is down to Tory policies, not Labour policies. I'm sure Mainoonited is bang on here too. This is how the UK works.

​

 
Dans said:
That alone is proof enough that this is down to Tory policies, not Labour policies. I'm sure Mainoonited is bang on here too. This is how the UK works.

​

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Uber, amazon, construction, anywhere gig economy or cash in hand all benefit from it.

I know for a fact illegal immigrants using other people's accounts (renting them) to do food delivery on e-bikes. These guys will accept any bottom of the barrel rate, because they have low overheads, their sole purpose is to send money back home. If they can send £500 a month, they're smashing life as far as they're concerned. People like Amazon sub contract work, the sub contractors then sub contract it, especially the logistics sector. 4-5 nodes down, you've got a guy driving a van dropping off goods to your warehouse on less than minimum wage, being paid cash, and is here as a foreign student.
 
i feel like i've distracted from something really important, by discussing just one of the symptoms.

As a home owner, i'd happily spend the next 20 years in negative equity if it meant my kids could get affordable homes in the future.
 
Mainoonited said:
Uber, amazon, construction, anywhere gig economy or cash in hand all benefit from it.

I know for a fact illegal immigrants using other people's accounts (renting them) to do food delivery on e-bikes. These guys will accept any bottom of the barrel rate, because they have low overheads, their sole purpose is to send money back home. If they can send £500 a month, they're smashing life as far as they're concerned. People like Amazon sub contract work, the sub contractors then sub contract it, especially the logistics sector. 4-5 nodes down, you've got a guy driving a van dropping off goods to your warehouse on less than minimum wage, being paid cash, and is here as a foreign student.
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Yeah there is all sorts of dodgy stuff going on with the food delivery companies, the person on the app is never the one delivering the food. Whilst it's true that these workers are sending money back home and benefiting they are actually being exploited.
 
Mainoonited said:
i feel like i've distracted from something really important, by discussing just one of the symptoms.

As a home owner, i'd happily spend the next 20 years in negative equity if it meant my kids could get affordable homes in the future.
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I think the fact you (a) put it before the lack of houses built, with Tories failing all targets and (b) putting about triple the effort into that element than into others might suggest a reason for the distraction.
 
Mainoonited said:
Bro, all this work visa abuse flew wide open since the Tories have been in power. Labour had "free movement of people" as thier cheap labour thing, the Tories have "work visas".

The thing is there is nowhere near the demand for cheap labour, as there is supply. The rest just leads to exploitation.

I'm a partner in a local food delivery business, the food delivery sector is full of people with questionable immigration statuses and it's boosted Uber Eats profits. We pay our drivers £1.70 a mile. Uber Eats offers as low as 50p per mile.

Big business is benefiting massively from this.
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It's a different name for the same thing. Like i say Blair set the blueprint that's been continued ever since, the only difference is how far beneath the surface the government of the time wishes to bury it. My best friend at school had Iranian guys working in the kitchen at his dad's takeaway. Zero English, £200 quid a week cash to send home, and as far as anybody was concerned they didn't exist here. This was about 20 years ago.
 
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