HJ's good idea re housing shortage.

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Sat 3 Dec 2016 18:28
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - Oli rag

This was posted by HJ this morning in a rather off motoring topic answer in his weekly motoring Q&A and I thought it was a brilliant idea.

The fact is that the UK needs at least 1,000,000 new homes and the 8 major developers are holding back developing sites for which they have planning permission in order to increase the prices. Standard supply and demand. Sajid Javid says he's going to so something about it but actually the solution is for the Government to create 'The Housing Bank'. Very simply, anyone with money languishing at 0% in a bank account (while the bankers gamble with it) voluntarily withdraws their money and invests it in 'The Housing Bank' that guarantees a 2.5%pa return for 10 years. The Housing Bank then uses that money to build affordable homes on the many available patches of Government land, preferably those adjacent to facilities such as schools and hospitals. The dispossessed who can't afford to buy any kind of property then get £85,000 - £120,000 houses on a 3% mortgage. The catch is that the houses are price controlled so their values cannot rise by more than 2.5% a year. Attempting to control developers hasn't worked and never will. Competing against them and beating them at their own game could work, to the benefit of everyone, particularly the 20 - 40 year olds living in bedsits or with their parents. Not 'Council Houses'. Not 'Housing Association' houses. These will be covenanted freehold or leasehold basic affordable homes. The other huge benefit, of course, will be to lift Britain out of its extremely dubious property price based economy.

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Sat 3 Dec 2016 20:29
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - daveyjp
Like all one shot good ideas to solve a complex problem it has more holes than a colander.
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Sat 3 Dec 2016 21:08
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - gordonbennet

The housing shortage is a huge problem, its just another national problem exacerbated to crisis levels by the elephant in the room which no one dare see nor mention...thankfully that time is coming to an end and frank discussion will be needed recognising yon heffelump.

Whilst a good theory in some ways, its isn't going to happen, and up to a point if the shortage was cured it would only be for a short while because we'd need three million more houses to cope with the new demand from rapidly increasing numbers such a relief would bring.

Housing supply isn't just it either, thousands of new houses needs massive increases in infrastructure as well as services to service those new households, and more houses will mean more people however they want to flower the statistics up...at the moment we don't increase infrastructure or services but breaking point isn't far off.

The roads alone apart from everything else can't cope, at present levels i think in the next decade we will see the traffic jams from hell descend into complete gridlock.

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Sat 3 Dec 2016 21:16
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - RT

There's no housing shortage, no housing problem - the problem is over-population but politicians keep the blinkers on deliberately.

I'm not advocating any unethical measures to reduce population - just set the net migration limit at zero, enforce it, and end abolish child benefit and other benefits for 3rd and subsequent children.

Working parents don't get any more if they have lots of kids, why should those on benefit?

Edited by RT on 03/12/2016 at 21:16

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Sat 3 Dec 2016 21:17
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - gordonbennet

Ye Gods, that elephant is plain blocking the view now RT..:-))

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Sun 4 Dec 2016 17:42
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - Bromptonaut

There's no housing shortage, no housing problem - the problem is over-population but politicians keep the blinkers on deliberately

I'm not advocating any unethical measures to reduce population - just set the net migration limit at zero, enforce it, and end abolish child benefit and other benefits for 3rd and subsequent children.

Working parents don't get any more if they have lots of kids, why should those on benefit?

Migration zero will chronically hobble the economy and public services. Something round half the current influx is non EU and therefore controllable now. The reason we don't stop them is they'e bringing in skills or money.

We need both.

The idea that working parents don't get more if they have lots of kids is nonesense. Child Tax Credit reaches way beyond those on min wage.

The government are proposing to limit it to first two children from 2017/18. Like cuts in working tax credit, sickness benefits and the storm to come after Christmas over the benefit cap MP's who voted it through are going to see the effect in their case-work.

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Tue 6 Dec 2016 11:28
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - concrete

Thr problem seems to be two fold. Firstly, why the government had ditched a points based sysytem is a mystery. Surely the more skills you have the more points the more welcome. Unskilled and unemployeable are not welcome. Reality at work.

Secondly, the housing shortage will take years to correct in any event, but the idea of 'The Housing Bank' is basically sound. Provided the right person is chosen to run it. There is a good scheme at work in Holland at present which allows people to purchase their own plot of land or buy off plan in a multi story development. The idea is you can self build or enter into a co-operative with a construction company to build the property. The scheme is funded by land sales, is ringfenced and separated from ministerial control and is made affordable by the fact that profits don't have to be made to satisfy loans, shareholders etc etc. Surely any sensible scheme would be better than what we have!

Cheers Concrete

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Thu 8 Dec 2016 22:07
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - Bolt

Whatever happened to the idea of using old shipping containers for homes, they did not take very long to convert and could be made to size very quickly?

It was suggested years ago but nothing more has been said that I know of?

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Thu 23 Mar 2017 00:43
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - Sulphur Man

They got turned into data centres. Very good they are too

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Thu 23 Mar 2017 00:50
HJ's good idea re housing shortage. - Sulphur Man

I doubt any of the holes are as big as Osborne's terrible 'help-to-buy' scheme - a policy that has done nothing but increase the debt burden even further, and for those with limited cash to begin with, buying houses in limited supply at inflated prices.

Anything that can accelerate affordable home buying has to be encouraged. This government has been utterly ineffective in this regard

Edited by Sulphur Man on 23/03/2017 at 00:50

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