Baby boomers and housing

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/20/one-in-seven-councillors-in-english-rental-hotspots-are-landlords

This is why councils do not want to build more council houses. One in seven councillors will lose out.

was that Paul the misogynist?
Yes - allegedly

Another aspect of this subject - tower blocks.
This was the answer to the housing problem at one time. I think they are a most de-humanising type of housing, and wish they weren't necessary.

It might be good advice for some of those who think the world owes them a living I read a letter in a newspaper from some GPs, whose GS, despised the wage slavery of a earning his living, but was quite happy to live with his GPs and sponge off them (I think his parents had thrown him out).

I felt that the order of the boot and a couple of nights on a park bench or sofa surfing would do him a power of good.

was that Paul the misogynist?

The good book says "let him (her) who WON'T work not eat"!
Was that Paul?

In the south east the cost of land accounts for up to 70% (or even more in some areas) of the price of any house, the cost of building it forms a very small proportion of the house.

No matter how many houses we build the price will not come down unless we can reduce the price of the land they are built on. In fact the more houses we build the more expensive land becomes as builders compete to buy a scarce resource.

I have no idea what the solution is to this problem. Any ideas?

Good heavens, paddyann I completely missed that!
Amazing that a text written 2,000+ years ago should be taken as a pattern for modern life when circumstances are radically different from those of the peasant community it was written for and about...

Whatever we might wisely say about our hard work in the past and the iniquities of private landlords the fact remains that there aren't enough houses to go round and scarcity always pushes up prices. We could shoulder some of the blame for electing governments that have done nothing to relieve the situation...

Many gransnetters have said that they have helped their children buy houses. We have done this ourselves with our three daughters.
But really this is not solving the housing problem. It might even be making it worse by increasing house prices.
We now have people in their thirties and forties who can only buy with parental help.
What about the others who don't have that help? It makes for a more and more divided society.

NEWQUAY does the "good book" REALLY say those let who wont work not eat? Good christian principles then!!Now I know why May and co at Westminster call themselves christians.What strange and shocking attitude to other people experiencing financial difficulty

Because of the involvement of TUs and the like, there were a lot of small scale developments of a very high standard. One thing I noticed when I was there was the next apartment block down was being built and already the children’s well equipped playground was finished so it was already for when the first family moved in. When I mentioned this, my German friends looked rather puzzled at it not being completely obvious that this would be the case.

That's interesting, I didn't know that, although I had heard that there is a lower rate of home ownership in Germany.

Yes all you had to do was be a good tenant - pay your rent and keep to your side of the tenancy agreement. It’s like that in countries like France and Germany and (probably others). Certainly in Germany, renting property out is one of the ways that Trade Unions invest their capital. Much safer than the stock exchange and providing a service at the same time.

That's true, that and unaffordable rents.
Renting was more secure years ago; we had several family members who rented the same properties privately for 50 years or more.

What I find so sad and unacceptable about today’s rental market is the lack of security of tenure. You read awful stories about children being forced to change schools at critical points in their education, of people being evicted because their landlord has defaulted on the buy to let mortgage.

That is what Housing benefit is for

Norah it may well be that renting is better for a lot of people when young, to avoid responsibility of maintenance etc. - but what about when they reach pension age? They're unlikely to have much in savings left, and would they be able to rent on a pension?

I read the article Lara and thought it added nothing to explain the issues, simply adding a few flippant comments to the debate. In my opinion, housing affordability is a global problem - some countries like Canada and Australia have had a larger increase than the UK, some have had less, like the USA. However, many developed countries seem to have areas where people earning average salaries cannot afford to rent or buy. If there was a solution that was politically or economically viable, one city or one country would have implemented it by now. If there was a single or a local driver of property prices, it would be possible to mitigate that, however, we're now in a world where property is a global commodity and I doubt you can get the toothpaste back in the tube. If I don't see the situation changing significantly in the future, irrespective of any of the suggestions on this thread.

The housing market is broken. Not the fault of the baby boomers, but to some extent, many of our generation benefitted when council housing was sold off in the 1980s and from the easing of mortgage lending. Although it didn't feel beneficial at the time, the high inflation of the 1980s also boosted our house values.
The political thinking in the 80s was that home ownership was good for society and that homeowners would vote Conservative.
As I see it, the only solution for the shortage of housing is for councils to be allowed to build loads more council/social housing. The current policy of developers having to build a small proportion of affordable or social housing doesn't seem to work as the developers usually decide (after receiving planning permission) that they won't make a profit if they build "affordable" housing. They then (in our area at least) sit on the land and refuse to build until the council is forced to relax this affordable housing condition. Even "affordable housing" is not affordable to most would-be home purchasers anyway.
More council housing for rent would give people more options and should ease the whole housing market.

Stoke-on-Trent Council sold some houses for £1, provided that the new owners did them up. The Council did spend several thousand pounds on the houses, making them fit for habitation, which money was in the form of a loan to whoever purchased the house.
They are going to continue with the scheme:
www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/stoke-on-trent-council-selling-homes-1/

Mrs Thatcher was Friedmanite Free Marketer. At heart she saw no place for the state as a provider of any social services. She believed everything should be provided through the private sector and market mechanisms, very much like the USA

The purpose of her council house selling policy was to reduce the size of the social housing sector. Allowing councils to use the proceeds of sales to build more houses would have made her policy ineffective.

Thatcher deliberately didn’t want to replace council houses because she was buying votes - therefore selling them off was absolutely corrupt and wicked and set the scene for the current situation. And many who didn’t but weren’t being irresponsible - they didn’t have the option

Buying is not for everyone, some like renting to lack the responsibility of ownership.

no wine apart from very special occasions
We did have wine at weekends Jura2 - it was homemade from blackberries, elderberries, nettles, etc, gathered from the hedgerows.
And very good it was too!

Selling off council housing to tenants was not a bad idea, although some was sold off far more cheaply than it should have been - what was wrong was that the LAs were not allowed to use the proceeds of the sales to build more council housing.