There is no doubt that there is a problem with insufficient housing just now, in many parts of the country – especially London.
One of the things we are all agreed on is that the root cause of this is that there is not enough housing to go around. We need to build more houses (and flats) – that is the only real solution to the current housing crisis.
Or is it?
I have never been a fan of the ‘we all think’ mentality, where certain things are assumed and taken for granted. We need to drag these things out, from time to time, kicking and screaming into the daylight, and take a good look at them.
Is it really the case that we need to build more houses? Or is it rather than we need to make better use of the housing we already have?
Consider the following:
- The average housing size is much smaller than it was, say 100 years ago. Families tend to be smaller and more people are living on their own. Or would like to live on their own if only they could find an affordable one bedroom flat …
- Many properties (so I understand) have been bought up by foreign investors who prefer to leave them empty
- Some new housing developments appear to be being marketed abroad before the properties are made available to British families (consider this article in the Guardian for example about London flats being marketed in Hong Kong)
- With the development of the internet, many shops are closing and being left empty, there also seems to be a fair amount of empty office space around
- The housing shortage appears to be focused mostly on London. Other parts of the country which are less economically successful (if you can call it that) have cheaper housing for sale – but people don’t want it (which is why it is cheaper).
So maybe its not so much that we don’t have enough housing but that:
- We don’t have enough of the type of housing (one person units and family three bedroom homes) that many people need
- Housing is being treated as an investment opportunity rather than as the provision of homes for the population
- Buildings are in some cases not being used for the purpose for which there is the most need
- The demand for housing is greater in some parts of the country than in others
I have recently, when I get time, been reading the ideas of Oxford Geography Professor Danny Dorling. His view, set out in his book All that is Solid (which I have not finished yet!), is that we have enough buildings, and indeed bedrooms, to accommodate everyone. Its just that we don’t use them efficiently.
Politics not law is the solution
This is the realm of the politician rather than the lawyer and any solutions should come from government and the way they control the economy.
But I don’t know about you, but properties lying empty or being marketed to investors in Hong Kong while some people are so desperate for somewhere to live that they are prepared to pay a small fortune for a bed in a shed, says to me that something is seriously wrong.
For a long time housing seems to have been pretty low on the political agenda. Witness the way housing ministers come and go, rarely lasting more than a year in office.
It seems to be taking a higher profile now, but I am not convinced that the proposals being put forward are properly thought out. I am worried that they are just knee jerk reactions being put forward for political advantage.
It would be nice if there could be some sort of cross party agreement to try to find a proper and more balanced solution to the current inequalities in the supply of what is after all a very basic and fundamental human need.
What do you think?
Absolutely spot on Tessa.
Ignoring the many thousands of empty homes in The UK, nearly one million actually, and ignoring the potential for flats over shops, anther 300,000, and the conversion of empty commercial space to residential, another 500,000 still leaves us with the anomaly of many older people living on their own, in very large old family homes that they can not afford to heat or maintain.
Better schemes such as Care to Stay, matching carer/lodgers to older people, and voluntary schemes were people are able to downsize homes, need to be promoted more widely, offering incentives for people to be able to either fill up existing homes, or move to more suitable ones.
Then we start to look at the existing empty stuff!. More enforcement against owners who deliberately leave property empty, more schemes to bring vacant commercial into residential use, and incentives for shop keepers to bring flats over shops into use.
Look around you, how many empty pubs are near you? vacant offices?, empty floors above shops in High Streets or run down abandoned houses in your street.
Lets look at making better use of what we have.
I have Danny Dorling’s book too but havent had time to make a start yet but I read an interesting article in the Guardian where he makes the pertinent point that not everyone is affected by benefit cuts, education or elder issues but everyone is affected in some way or other by housing, whether it’s lack of, affordability, mortgage rates etc etc.
And yet less than a year ago when Kris Hopkins was given the portfolio for housing it was downgraded from ministerial status, which shows how much this government grasps about the issues.
Housing for them is seen as a commodity to be traded, divorced from not only the notion of property as a home but also from its place as part of the community as a whole.
Paul puts his finger on the button there.
Working in the frontline I get into these properties all day long. Empty buildings that developers are sitting on as investments while the homelessness queues grow.
Having said that, if Labour get in next year I still wouldnt be very confident that they would do anything different with their promises.
All government’s signally fail to understand the complex nexus involved in housing and community, or at least they fail to be able to make the complexity fit into vote winning sound-bites.
Absolutely; there must be plenty of older people, especially those newly alone, who would be delighted to be able to downsize, but the problem for them is actually very similar to that of first-time buyers. Both need fairly basic accommodation but it needs to be cheap to run, which means either new-ish or having undergone a major refurb to maximise its insulation and minimise the occupants’ effort needed for maintenance.
Sadly much of our older building stock (commercial as well as that already classified as residential) has not been updated, and new-build is in such tiny units; not just basic (a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen area) but with minimal space. Newish flats intended for these two groups are GRIM, they are so claustrophobic and cell-like, and I’m sure that that is what puts off so many from downsizing.
Both groups are often constrained in where they need to live, either by their jobs (in which case commercial conversions could be ideal, as they are generally in town centres and so could obviate the need to commute to work and perhaps to have a car) or the need to be near family members in case of emergencies. Very often a particular area will be very limited in the range of accommodation available, for example I can think of many which are almost exclusively two or three-bedroom semis, all of which (wherever in the country they may be) are well out of reach financially for local first-time buyers but which are equally unsuitable for older people now living alone. The archetypal 1930s-style bungalow would be good for the latter, but does NOT need to have a vast garden as so many do – in later life, this becomes a burden more than a pleasure.
Precisely what we do not need is the new ‘affordable’ speculative building, where there is the stipulation that no public facilities need be included.
None of the parties are likely to tackle this any time soon.
Our economy is so finely balanced and predicated on house prices (credit), consumer spending (credit) and financial services (credit) that politicians are unable to commit to any policy that will result in downward pressure on house prices (i.e. by significantly increasing supply). All they are able to do is tinker around the edges, like subsidising first-time buyers.
With total household debt over £1.4 trillion (£1,400,000,000,000!), and mortgage debt making up £1.3 trillion of the total, they cannot risk anything that might destabilise the market, at least not until they have better control over government borrowing so they can afford to deal with the fall-out.
@ Paul, speaking from experience in the retirement property sector, you cannot incentivise people who own larger properties to downsize unless you build the type of properties they aspire to live in. Those properties are very expensive to build and the numbers just very rarely stack up for the lenders to take the risk.