Why housing is so expensive

It is mainly to do with the price of land with planning permission.

Exactly varian and when governments of all complexions go on about the need to get more houses up and waffle on about reforming the planning system or experimenting with new building methods. The one thing they do not address is the price of land.

Watching the speed with which houses get planning consent and built and occupied in my area, The current planning system and building methods are entirely up to speed, the problem is the cost of land, especially in the south east.

With the cost of land being so high how many millions/billions will Corbyn put aside for his compulsory purchase plan? He even has farms in his sights , if he chooses an area where houses are needed he will slap a compulsory purchase on land .

An estate in Windsor Great Park!

The Tories have a similar plan

So he is following the tories ?

I’ve no idea, but undoubtedly that is how you will spin it given the chance.

There was Tory MP on the "Today program"this morning actually saying that Margaret Thatchers "right to buy" policies has, down the propery line, caused a whole lot of problems .
Basically selling off the council houses at far too low prices has left the councils short of money to be able to replace the housing stock for council tenants.

House builders instead of building enough "affordable homes" are going all out to build the much larger and more prestigious houses.

I cannot help but think that If I had a very small three bedroom home on an estate with far posher houses I would feel rather like the poor relation and a fish out of water.

Another thing that is wrong is that the NHS is selling off lots of land for house building, but nurses will not be able to afford to buy them.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/09/nurses-priced-out-of-housing-developments-on-former-nhs-sites

Building firms are not charities , they will build houses which will bring in the highest profit , no different to any other business

But they are supposed to be building affordable homes.
When they apply for planning permission they are supposed to factor in a number of affordable homes.

In many areas the cost of land is the biggest cost. If the land is already paid for, as in NHS land, that will make the houses affordable.

If the NHS gave the land to local councils to build council housing that would go a long way to solving the housing crisis.

Quite a few years ago now a lot of what was called Crown Property owned by NHS hospitals -disused clinics, closed cottage hospitals, houses used for staff accommodation etc was sold off but the money went back to central government not specifically to fund the NHS.

affordable homes ? Any home is affordable if it sells

I understood that councils were not allowed to use any cash from sales of social housing properties towards building new homes. So under Thatcher rules there wasn't just a shortfall.
The sale of council houses in Scotland was stopped by the government some time ago.

I am talking about NHS land that is being sold off, not council housing.

Your socialist credentials coming to the fore again, Annie.
The bottom fifth in the income scale spend 47% of their income on housing.
That's including housing benefit.

I cannot believe that someone who works in the building trade does not know about affordable homes, particularly one who is supposed to be a socialist.

We need to go back in time, council houses and privately owned houses . Nurses can't afford to buy a house, they earn so little some have to use food banks, we are told

neweconomics.org/2018/01/no-homes-for-nurses/?sf_action=get_results&sf_paged=2

Dj, post the costs of what you consider an affordable home . And do try to post addressing the topic being discussed not another poster.

The cost of the houses being built is affordable. It is the price of the land they are being built on that is so expensive - and as the demand for housing grows so will the price of that land so even though the cost of building the houses remains in line with costs, selling prices will inevitably rise. Public housing is as much a victim of land prices as commercial house builing.

I have no idea what the solution is. No one, not as an individual, a corporate body or a political party has yet put forward any satisfactory solution to this problem.

Meanwhile, if you want to build a small 4 bedroomed detached house on a very narrow plot cheek by jowl with the adjoining small dull terrace and facing the main road, come to our village, you can buy just such a plot. A snip at £200,000, plus the cost of building said house.

We are told Annie

Sales of council homes were in fact happening well before Thatcher. A dd recently bought an ex council house which, according to a good old nose on the Land Registry, was bought by the former owners from the council in 1971 - for £3100. Dd paid over 100 times that.

To be entirely fair, I don't think anyone could have envisaged, when RTB was first introduced, that house prices would become so ridiculous compared to incomes.

I do often wonder why Labour never put a stop to it - they had plenty of time to do so. Presumably it was the old story - they thought it would lose them votes. I know more than one diehard Labour voter who was more than happy to buy their home at a substantial discount.

People can afford to buy these houses or they wouldn't be built

www.24housing.co.uk/news/lga-3-5bn-fire-sale-threatens-right-to-buy/

This is the problem caused by right to buy.
I presume you will believe house builders, Annie.
I prefer to use facts, not prejudice.

Perhaps you could tell me what an affordable home is for a nurse on £24,000 a year, which is the average pay for nurses. Could a nurse buy a house that your brother builds?
Would it not be better that the cost of the land was removed from the equation?