| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? 14:50 - May 17 with 10481 views | GavTWTD |
I feel that we're not looking at the housing crisis in the right way. Nimbyism is preventing housebuilding to the scale we need, so why don't we build a few large villages per rural county? I've not done the maths on this. It's just an idea, but get a (good) town planner in and develop some lower value farmland.
Get the town planner to insist on some architectural standards across the village, including green and insulation and styles, social housing etc. Get high speed broadband into every house. Stick a wind turbine up for local use, a pub/shop or more facilities, and inject money into local schools and health services. Create green spaces in the village, some stone bridges or whatever and don't make a concrete jungle, but something designed holistically from the ground up.
I don't know about land values, but perhaps the farmland could be bought reasonably cheaply, given that it only has one use currently. Then the land could be sold to developers at a commercial rates to fund local infrastructure improvements or social housing. Provision could be given to local farmers to sell land at a later date at commercial rates that skirt the village.
Anyway, this isn't in my manifesto, just something for discussion at the next conference. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:17 - May 17 with 2354 views | NthQldITFC |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 17:10 - May 17 by OldFart71 |
House building has always been a contentious issue. I bought my first house under Maggie Thatchers right to buy. Whether that was right or wrong is open to debate, but I wouldn't have been on the housing ladder without it. The biggest problem with any developement is the fact that they are allowed to go ahead with little or no first looking at whether the area and community can sustain that developement as far as traffic on the roads, hospitals or Country Practices, schools and the environment. Builders should be made to provide an area that includes park areas, trees and if necessary extend of build NHS facilities and schools and be made responsible for the upkeep of the roads and pathways on their developement. |
Fking 'developers' are always agreeing to provide services and affordable housing and they never do it and they never get punished for it because it's all a great big corrupt scam and they're all a bunch of... anchors.
It seems like the figures suggest we 'need' more than one new house per person based on population increase which is obscene - is that for second, unoccupied houses or for overseas 'investors' or what? - I must admit I haven't checked these figures because the whole thing depresses me too much. You can't reverse the destruction which is being done at the moment because we're too stupid to be humble while our world is destroyed by our greed. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:18 - May 17 with 2356 views | Bugs |
There is a tried and proven way to sort out a housing crisis, and it's been used successfully more than a few times by Governments of all colours in the last 150 years. Build a sh1t load of social housing.
Why no major political party in the 21st century isn't proposing this isn't just worrying, it's a travesty. |  | | |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:20 - May 17 with 2351 views | Ryorry |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:04 - May 17 by bluestandard |
The poster said that there should be incentives for people to leave underoccupied houses. That is neutral of peoples individual circumstances. There is no compulsion to do so.
The point here is that older people don't have enough viable choices when it comes to downsizing. Every review of this area comes to this conclusion. Incentives could include zero stamp duty for downsizers, and better incentives to build retirement housing, which is often more costly than standard housing when you factor in all the disability adaptations and provisions when compared to standard housing.
I agree with you that there is a huge shortfall of affordable housing and this is even more acute in older persons housing. |
I've not met a single person in my age group (over 65s) who would ever even consider a "retirement" home. All want to live in a "normal", ie mixed ages communities, which is what works best for all age groups.
Basically, this locally means carrying on living in the same local community that they have been for years, where they have roots, friends & family. Out here in the sticks that means the same house, as there aren't any derelict buildings left to renovate, and permission would never be given for new-builds on green-fields. [Post edited 17 May 2023 21:29]
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:24 - May 17 with 2349 views | bluestandard |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 18:02 - May 17 by StokieBlue |
LVT is a decent idea, although it's going to be quite expensive for many people (I think the rate quoted is usually about 2%). There should definitely be a large programme of social house building but no party seems to have the will to actually push it through. Nimbies can be totally ignored if required (see HS2 for instance).
The underlying issue is that the housing market contains many feedback loops. Any incentive to lower the prices will likely mean a lot of people either in negative equity (and thus never selling so not creating more available property) or defaulting.
So in most discussions you end up with two camps: The homeowners who don't want negative equity or to default and the non-homeowners who want the the prices driven down and those two sides are unlikely to agree.
We have a few on here who absolutely revel in the thought of a house price crash whilst totally ignoring the huge social impacts it would have on those caught in a desperate situation of negative equity or repossession. I suspect that the majority of those are in the non-homeowner camp because the subject is so polarising.
In summary: The housing market is a mess and it has implications for wider issues whatever happens.
SB |
Imho the topic of house prices often ignores the central issue of inflation of fiat currency. All the money printing which has happened has had the greatest impact on asset prices, and property in particular. With the banks flooded with liquidity, where better to put it than in solid bricks and mortar, and so house prices have rocketed upwards since 2008.
I agree that a crash now would be catastrophic, and thats because the problems we have now are because we didn't have smaller crashes at each recession point where defaults and managed failures could have seen debt mountains reduced. Instead we have this pent up mother of all debt mountains which is now in the 'too big to fail' category. No idea where it will all end up. |  | | |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:31 - May 17 with 2324 views | bluestandard |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:20 - May 17 by Ryorry |
I've not met a single person in my age group (over 65s) who would ever even consider a "retirement" home. All want to live in a "normal", ie mixed ages communities, which is what works best for all age groups.
Basically, this locally means carrying on living in the same local community that they have been for years, where they have roots, friends & family. Out here in the sticks that means the same house, as there aren't any derelict buildings left to renovate, and permission would never be given for new-builds on green-fields. [Post edited 17 May 2023 21:29]
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Not sure if the terminology here means we are talking at cross purposes. Whilst there are some retirement living communities (RLCs), these are usually built in larger settlement areas and so are integrally connected to mixed age communities. Furthermore, many local authorities now require a percentage of specially adapted homes to be built as part of larger STANDARD housing allocations eg. retirement bungalows. So yes, we aren't talking about isolated exclusively old aged communities, or care homes which is something completely different. | | | |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 22:07 - May 17 with 2301 views | Ryorry |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:31 - May 17 by bluestandard |
Not sure if the terminology here means we are talking at cross purposes. Whilst there are some retirement living communities (RLCs), these are usually built in larger settlement areas and so are integrally connected to mixed age communities. Furthermore, many local authorities now require a percentage of specially adapted homes to be built as part of larger STANDARD housing allocations eg. retirement bungalows. So yes, we aren't talking about isolated exclusively old aged communities, or care homes which is something completely different. |
I understand the detail of what you're saying, but you're still ignoring the over-whelming factor of most people's (of any age) strong desire to live independently, in the situation they're used to, until they're literally unable to survive there. For most, that'd mean selling up & moving into a care home, not into a smaller dwelling.
Edit: And btw, these larger 3 or 4-bed houses that would become available if single pensioners etc. did move out, cost a minimum of £500K on the open market round these parts (not the case everywhere I know). [Post edited 17 May 2023 22:15]
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 22:15 - May 17 with 2294 views | StokieBlue |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 20:23 - May 17 by HARRY10 |
There is an obvious flaw in that.
Building social housing rarely affects the housing market. |
I've not said it does.
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 22:44 - May 17 with 2279 views | bluestandard |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 22:07 - May 17 by Ryorry |
I understand the detail of what you're saying, but you're still ignoring the over-whelming factor of most people's (of any age) strong desire to live independently, in the situation they're used to, until they're literally unable to survive there. For most, that'd mean selling up & moving into a care home, not into a smaller dwelling.
Edit: And btw, these larger 3 or 4-bed houses that would become available if single pensioners etc. did move out, cost a minimum of £500K on the open market round these parts (not the case everywhere I know). [Post edited 17 May 2023 22:15]
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I don't think I'm ignoring it. In fact what I'm saying is that for the housing market to work better, we have to challenge the mindset of people who want to stay in their own home well beyond the point that the property is capable of meeting their needs, and is also of a size in excess of their needs. Thats where the narrative has to change, and also the right incentives and market structure need to be put in place to encourage a change in mindset.
Imho, my experience in this area is that people will say they wish to remain in their home for as long as possible WHEN THEY ARE HEALTHY and not in need of care. The reality is that by staying in their family home which doesnt meet their needs (steps/not wheelchair friendly/poor circulation space for care equipment and carers etc) , they can actually end up entering a care home prematurely (ask any social worker in this space and they will have seen this). It doesn't happen like this in other countries where for some reason people have a more forward thinking perspective and end up benefitting.
I agree on the issue of the price of family homes (and all housing in general for that matter) being high. Thats a separate and very real issue brought about in large part by the reckless inflation of fiat currency. Great debate! | | | |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 23:43 - May 17 with 2257 views | Ryorry |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 22:44 - May 17 by bluestandard |
I don't think I'm ignoring it. In fact what I'm saying is that for the housing market to work better, we have to challenge the mindset of people who want to stay in their own home well beyond the point that the property is capable of meeting their needs, and is also of a size in excess of their needs. Thats where the narrative has to change, and also the right incentives and market structure need to be put in place to encourage a change in mindset.
Imho, my experience in this area is that people will say they wish to remain in their home for as long as possible WHEN THEY ARE HEALTHY and not in need of care. The reality is that by staying in their family home which doesnt meet their needs (steps/not wheelchair friendly/poor circulation space for care equipment and carers etc) , they can actually end up entering a care home prematurely (ask any social worker in this space and they will have seen this). It doesn't happen like this in other countries where for some reason people have a more forward thinking perspective and end up benefitting.
I agree on the issue of the price of family homes (and all housing in general for that matter) being high. Thats a separate and very real issue brought about in large part by the reckless inflation of fiat currency. Great debate! |
"Challenge the mindset" - tosh.
Do you seriously think people reach the age of 65 without having themselves considered all their possible options?
You're arrogantly & ignorantly treating people as though they're bits of paper that you can push around on your planner's preconceived chess board.
I've been what you'd term "unhealthy" for the last 35, years but I know how to manage my problems, know my own mindset and that of many others of my generation, which don't remotely fit in with your mechanical theories of how you'd "organise" peoples' live for them. [Post edited 18 May 2023 0:37]
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:07 - May 18 with 2212 views | Bluespeed225 |
The 'Northern Fringe' looks huge, as do the developments in Felixstowe and The Trimleys. The field across from me is also earmarked. There is a carhome being built in one, the lift shafts standing like the Twin Towers at the moment, but, as with Ravenswood, only one way in and out, which seems to be the issue with a lot of developments. Junctions cost money, and you can squeeze another load of houses on the length of a slip road. | | | |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:13 - May 18 with 2210 views | WeWereZombies |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 22:07 - May 17 by Ryorry |
I understand the detail of what you're saying, but you're still ignoring the over-whelming factor of most people's (of any age) strong desire to live independently, in the situation they're used to, until they're literally unable to survive there. For most, that'd mean selling up & moving into a care home, not into a smaller dwelling.
Edit: And btw, these larger 3 or 4-bed houses that would become available if single pensioners etc. did move out, cost a minimum of £500K on the open market round these parts (not the case everywhere I know). [Post edited 17 May 2023 22:15]
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You have hit the nail on the head with your edit, Ryorry, the wrong type of houses are being built for the most part. Nearing and then reaching retirement many find that a smaller house might suit them but that they need more garden space - because they now have time for that outside work and it keeps them fit and healthy...for decades. With the increases in the cost of living there can also be advantages with growing your own vegetables, keeping hens etc. And you have trustworthy produce that can be combined with simple ingredients to make healthier meals, perhaps with enough to spare to share with younger yet more unhealthy family and friends who are locked into frantic money chasing activity, mainly due to the crazy housing market.
But try and find five or six rooms with a quarter of an acre of land in any location at any price and you have a fair bit of investigation to do. [Post edited 18 May 2023 8:17]
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:17 - May 18 with 2205 views | DanTheMan |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 18:02 - May 17 by StokieBlue |
LVT is a decent idea, although it's going to be quite expensive for many people (I think the rate quoted is usually about 2%). There should definitely be a large programme of social house building but no party seems to have the will to actually push it through. Nimbies can be totally ignored if required (see HS2 for instance).
The underlying issue is that the housing market contains many feedback loops. Any incentive to lower the prices will likely mean a lot of people either in negative equity (and thus never selling so not creating more available property) or defaulting.
So in most discussions you end up with two camps: The homeowners who don't want negative equity or to default and the non-homeowners who want the the prices driven down and those two sides are unlikely to agree.
We have a few on here who absolutely revel in the thought of a house price crash whilst totally ignoring the huge social impacts it would have on those caught in a desperate situation of negative equity or repossession. I suspect that the majority of those are in the non-homeowner camp because the subject is so polarising.
In summary: The housing market is a mess and it has implications for wider issues whatever happens.
SB |
LVT is an idea I just keep coming back to. I think you'd have to remove other taxes potentially to help balance it but it seems really a rather fair tax.
But as you also say, it probably wouldn't help all that much for this particular problem.
I'd basically like, ideally, house prices to at least stabilise instead of going ever upwards. 73% increase in a decade is just insane. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:27 - May 18 with 2198 views | StokieBlue |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:17 - May 18 by DanTheMan |
LVT is an idea I just keep coming back to. I think you'd have to remove other taxes potentially to help balance it but it seems really a rather fair tax.
But as you also say, it probably wouldn't help all that much for this particular problem.
I'd basically like, ideally, house prices to at least stabilise instead of going ever upwards. 73% increase in a decade is just insane. |
I agree, it would definitely require some rebalancing of taxes otherwise it's going to be prohibitively expensive for either people whom have been in their house a long time or those who bought at the limit of what they calculated they could afford.
Stabilisation would be sensible but if the banks keep increasing the amount they will lend it will keep rising - it's another feedback loop in the market.
SB | |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:37 - May 18 with 2195 views | BlueBoots |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 20:31 - May 17 by Ryorry |
Sadly, not enough people are aware of this, my fav charity, who are the only housing charity I'm aware of which, to deal with the problem, actually builds and renovates new and old houses/buildings instead of just talking & campaigning forever for others to build/renovate them ...
https://www.habitatforhumanity |
Looking at their website, the majority of their work is carried out in the developing world (and rightly so) I find the fact that they have this page on their website too...
https://www.habitatforhumanity
...simultaneously encouraging and disturbing. Encouraging as they're clearly doing fantastic work, but disturbing as this is something that should be pushed through at every opportunity by local authorities and preferably government driven with policy and incentives (never going to happen, because, as others have mentioned, there's more crony money to be made out of new large scale property development, and lower cost alternatives aren't as attractive)
Think I'll probably add embarrassing to disturbing that this is being driven by a charity that helps countries suffering from poverty. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:49 - May 18 with 2171 views | chicoazul |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:20 - May 17 by Ryorry |
I've not met a single person in my age group (over 65s) who would ever even consider a "retirement" home. All want to live in a "normal", ie mixed ages communities, which is what works best for all age groups.
Basically, this locally means carrying on living in the same local community that they have been for years, where they have roots, friends & family. Out here in the sticks that means the same house, as there aren't any derelict buildings left to renovate, and permission would never be given for new-builds on green-fields. [Post edited 17 May 2023 21:29]
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Boomer generation selfishness and stupidity in a nutshell. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:54 - May 18 with 2159 views | StokieBlue |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:49 - May 18 by chicoazul |
Boomer generation selfishness and stupidity in a nutshell. |
Isn't asking someone to move away from everything familiar in their lives also rather selfish?
It's much more complex that you're making out.
SB | |
| Avatar - M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:56 - May 18 with 2155 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 21:24 - May 17 by bluestandard |
Imho the topic of house prices often ignores the central issue of inflation of fiat currency. All the money printing which has happened has had the greatest impact on asset prices, and property in particular. With the banks flooded with liquidity, where better to put it than in solid bricks and mortar, and so house prices have rocketed upwards since 2008.
I agree that a crash now would be catastrophic, and thats because the problems we have now are because we didn't have smaller crashes at each recession point where defaults and managed failures could have seen debt mountains reduced. Instead we have this pent up mother of all debt mountains which is now in the 'too big to fail' category. No idea where it will all end up. |
Nail on head. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:56 - May 18 with 2152 views | itfcjoe |
It needs UK Plc to stop selling land to developers and letting them sit on it - a wide ranging skills programme to develop 'our own' people with the necessary skills to build houses from start to finish.
Would be a boon for the economy, would upskill areas of the population that likely need it and work towards levelling up, a lot of people will inevitably leave to go into private sector once qualified and so a nice natural clearance to allow more into training.
Old MoD sites, brownfield sites, etc - so much can be done but needs the will to do it and not just to palm it off to developers to control the market |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:02 - May 18 with 2147 views | StokieBlue |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:56 - May 18 by itfcjoe |
It needs UK Plc to stop selling land to developers and letting them sit on it - a wide ranging skills programme to develop 'our own' people with the necessary skills to build houses from start to finish.
Would be a boon for the economy, would upskill areas of the population that likely need it and work towards levelling up, a lot of people will inevitably leave to go into private sector once qualified and so a nice natural clearance to allow more into training.
Old MoD sites, brownfield sites, etc - so much can be done but needs the will to do it and not just to palm it off to developers to control the market |
Wouldn't it be even better to create a nationalised housebuilder?
- Apprenticeships in all building crafts
- Degree level positions in design, finance, logistics
- Run as a non-for-profit with cheaper houses or profits reinvested
- More social housing provisions alongside private purchases
It would also force developers to reduce their margins and thus slow some of the rising prices.
The above should also be done for green energy, absolutely no reason why the UK should be purchasing wind turbines from Denmark or Norway.
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| Avatar - M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:09 - May 18 with 2139 views | bluestandard |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 23:43 - May 17 by Ryorry |
"Challenge the mindset" - tosh.
Do you seriously think people reach the age of 65 without having themselves considered all their possible options?
You're arrogantly & ignorantly treating people as though they're bits of paper that you can push around on your planner's preconceived chess board.
I've been what you'd term "unhealthy" for the last 35, years but I know how to manage my problems, know my own mindset and that of many others of my generation, which don't remotely fit in with your mechanical theories of how you'd "organise" peoples' live for them. [Post edited 18 May 2023 0:37]
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Woah there! I fear this is getting personal when it really doesn't need to be. I hear your opinion, and respect it. I have mine. I'll leave it there. | | | |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:11 - May 18 with 2133 views | giant_stow |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:49 - May 18 by chicoazul |
Boomer generation selfishness and stupidity in a nutshell. |
Very harsh. if there's any boomer selfishness, it's in other areas. There would be no problem if we were building more houses. |  |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:27 - May 18 with 2116 views | chicoazul |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 08:54 - May 18 by StokieBlue |
Isn't asking someone to move away from everything familiar in their lives also rather selfish?
It's much more complex that you're making out.
SB |
Need you to show me where I’m asking for that my guy. | |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:32 - May 18 with 2112 views | chicoazul |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:11 - May 18 by giant_stow |
Very harsh. if there's any boomer selfishness, it's in other areas. There would be no problem if we were building more houses. |
So what’s the end to this then? Another poster explained the population of the UK grows year on year. So we just build ever more and more houses? Where? Who will build them, who will pay for the associated infrastructure? How will we cope with the carbon cost we incur?
Everybody says they want change; nobody wants to be the one to change. Nobody wants to feel a little pain or discomfort. I paid my taxes I did my bit I should be able to have what I want. That’s why we get the governments we do. | |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:37 - May 18 with 2099 views | WeWereZombies |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:32 - May 18 by chicoazul |
So what’s the end to this then? Another poster explained the population of the UK grows year on year. So we just build ever more and more houses? Where? Who will build them, who will pay for the associated infrastructure? How will we cope with the carbon cost we incur?
Everybody says they want change; nobody wants to be the one to change. Nobody wants to feel a little pain or discomfort. I paid my taxes I did my bit I should be able to have what I want. That’s why we get the governments we do. |
Population growth is a bit of a red herring at the moment, according to the World Bank the latest rate for the United Kingdom is 0.4% and falling:
https://www.google.com/search? | |
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| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 09:53 - May 18 with 2082 views | TalkingBlues |
| The housing crisis - build new villages or small towns? on 20:24 - May 17 by Ryorry |
Lol, what makes you think this corrupt current tory govt. would be any different from developers "hold(ing) everybody to ransom" and "looking to turn a huge profit on the build"?! |
To start off, I just want to say that what I'm talking about is focussed purely at Social Housing and the idea floating around in my head is that the Government developer would be set up as a "not-for-profit" business. I have little doubt that there would be skulduggery in some form, but under the proposed model, that is likely to be confined to employees wages/materials costs, so the scope for milking cash is far more limited than it would be in the usual housebuilding scenario.
The Government are uniquely positioned to remove/reduce a lot of the costs and administration of the traditional housebuilding model, largely those incorporated into Section 106 agreements and this would inevitably require a new structure for remunerating Council's, but nothing's perfect. However, the upside is that you move away from the GDV model, that includes an inflated land price based on projected house values and of course you remove the profit element of the house sale price too (as they are a not-for-profit and only seeking to recover the costs of actually building the properties) thus creating far more affordable homes for people. In new build, the "dirty" calculation the developers use is a third cost of the land, a third to build and a third profit on sale, in this scenario you'd be removing the third profit entirely and significantly reducing/removing the third cost of land purchase in many instances, as the expectation would be for the Government to be building on land which it already owns, where possible.
My vision would be that these built properties are made available only to those that qualify for Social Housing, thus not only are you clearing the huge backlogs of people needing houses, but you would inevitably see a % of people currently paying excessive rents (via Housing Benefit funding) in the private sector migrating to Government properties, thus reducing the Housing Benefit costs for Councils.
This is a very broad stroke view, I could spend hours going into detail, but I don't have the time and we probably don't need to anyway, the gist is there and it's viable. |  |
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