Why housing is so expensive

gillybob governments of all persuasions have been trying to do that for long as I can remember. I can remember Lord Hailsham coming up to the north east in the early 1960s, in a campaign that included cash incentives and enormous subsidies for new factories. The companies came, attracted by being provided with premises with out cost, but as soon as times got difficult they started by closing these factories, which had cost them nothing and were too far from their core operating area.

In the 60s and 70s there were restrictions on companies opening new facilities in the London area, but all they did was move a little further out, to Reading, Newbury, Chelmsford, Colchester,

At one point I thought the answer was to let companies develop in the south east, because eventually housing demand would exceed supply, house prices would rocket, people wouldn't want to move to London and companies would have to move out to get enough staff. Well, housing demand is well ahead of supply, prices have rocketed but people still pour in.

Governments have moved many government agencies out of London, notably DVLA to Swansea. the BBC to Salford has. More recently attempts have been made to move people north through cultural attractions; Liverpool had its garden festival, Hull was last year's City of Culture but all with little effect.

Now companies are more international, if one country's government limit where they can go, there will always be another country ready to be more amenable.

As I said Gilly governments have been trying to do this for decades with out success, If you know a sure fire way of doing it let us know. As a southerner, I would love to see the pressure on the south reduced, not just dropping house prices but fewer houses being built, fewer industrial estates, overcrowded roads, overwhelmed medical facilities and over crowded schools

Until big businesses are forced away from the same major cities then nothing will ever change.
You can pick a fabulous house up here for £200k or thereabouts but pick that house up and take it to Oxford, London or wherever the jobs are plentiful and the wages are high and it would be closer to a cool £million .

dj Before the sale of council houses, one third of the housing stock was in public ownership and rented on secure tenancies mainly to people who could not afford or did not have the income security to buy their own home.

I do not think anything has changed, a third of all households are still unlikely to ever be able to afford to buy their own home and should have the opportunity to obtain a secure long term tenancy, preferably in the public sector.

Nurses have always been in the group that were more likely to be in rented council property rather than buying a property. In fact my aunt held a very senior post in nursing. She was the Senior Nursing Tutor at a big London Hospital in the 1940s and 50s and she lived in the nursing home or with her mother, because she could not afford to buy a property and the building societies then would have been very wary about lending money to a single woman. She became a property owner when she married and bought a house with her DH.

Yes, I see to his accounts, see to the employees if my brother is on a roof forty miles away and we have men working locally makes sense surely .

The firm builds houses, rents properties , carries out repairs . Still not your business dj .

Okay, I won't ask Annie any more questions about housing, even though she is the perfect person to ask, as she does the books for her brother's housebuilding company.

I think it was wrong when selling off council houses that the money could not be ploughed back into building more council houses but think that changed recently.

Something which never seems to be talked about is that if the council sells a house it owned it is still being lived in by the same people but the council no longer has to pay for the upkeep which may save money. I think that to buy your own home under a scheme which makes it affordable must feel like a great achievement and give you pride in that home.

I think that the one way to solve the housing issue is to have more shared ownership homes. That would bridge the gap for many people on lower incomes.

Apart from increased population one of the reasons we need more homes is because of family breakdown, there is far more of that than there used to be.

Perhaps encouraging people to take in lodgers would help? DS did with his first home and it helped him pay his mortgage and save for his next home.

We used to accept that some people would never own their own home, that they would go on the council waiting list, have a couple of children and eventually get a council flat or house. Now we can't accept that and think everyone should have their own home at a young age.

I am asking Annie because her brother is a house builder and she works for him. Is she not the ideal person to answer the question?

No. You've been asked, several times, to leave family members out of your remarks and keep to generalised posts.

Isn't that what used to happen years ago?

"A large amount of NHS land is unused, according to a review of NHS property published in March by Sir Robert Naylor, the former chief executive of University College London Hospitals.

His report suggested that unlocking the land for private development would create space for up to 40,000 homes.

Now, that idea has been extended to using the land for building affordable homes for NHS staff – with scope for building affordable housing for the wider community."

May I just add I work WITH my brother , thank you

Be rather silly to buy land without knowing if houses can be built on it.

I am asking Annie because her brother is a house builder and she works for him.
Is she not the ideal person to answer the question posed?

Monica, I presume the cost of the land is so high is because a builder or the owner has already got planning permission for the land. It would be a lot less without it.

Dj, what attack on you? You brought my brothers firm into this, that was personal , I have kept to the topic and said twice we need council houses and privately owned houses, this is the real world . The selling off of council houses cannot be undone .

Apologies to posters but I have to defend myself against personal questions about my family members . My brother is not responsible for the housing problem , he is responsible for paying his workmen every pay day,

This thread is turning into one of those "get the popcorn" discussions ...

I was wondering exactly the same.

Why has this become a personal interrogation by one poster demanding explanations from another? This is the House & Home forum, not News & Politics.

However, the NHS has lots of spare land to release, as you would have noticed if you had bothered looking at anything other than the word nurse.

"At conference, Hunt said more than 5,000 new places on nursing training courses are to be created each year as part of government efforts to boost the NHS workforce in England.

A large amount of NHS land is unused, according to a review of NHS property published in March by Sir Robert Naylor, the former chief executive of University College London Hospitals.

His report suggested that unlocking the land for private development would create space for up to 40,000 homes.

Now, that idea has been extended to using the land for building affordable homes for NHS staff – with scope for building affordable housing for the wider community.

The Naylor review said the spare land, worth about £2.7bn, remains unused because there is no incentive for NHS bodies to release the land for development."

fullfact.org/economy/housing-getting-less-affordable/

I am actually talking about both, Annie. I don't need to decide.
It's the Tory Right to Buy that has messed up the housing market, everybody but you seems to agree on that.

Instead of just attacking me - as usual - why don't you tell us about the problems with housing policy.

We need nurses, carpenters, plumbers, supermarket workers everywhere and they too need houses

Dj do decide if you are discussing private houses and council houses , I said earlier in this thread we need both. You then go on about what a nurse can afford to buy,

Do we not need nurses everywhere, Annie?

www.24housing.co.uk/news/first-refusal-for-nhs-staff-where-homes-are-built-on-nhs-land/

It sounded good at the Tory conference, but it isn't happening. They are selling off the land and making houses unaffordable.

Then a nurse cannot afford to buy a house in some parts of the country

Why is it always nurses ? Are they the only one's who want to buy a house . Do stop those violins please.

"The minister for housing and regeneration, Rebecca Evans AM, said: “Between 1981 and 2016, over 139,000 local authority and housing association homes were sold off under the Right to Buy.

“We know this has led to many people, including many vulnerable people, waiting longer to access a home that they can afford. This legislation will give social landlords more confidence to invest in new housing, by removing the risk of these homes being sold after only a few years.

“We are committed to creating 20,000 more affordable homes by 2021, and we are supporting social landlords to help us to achieve this.

“We will shortly be publishing more information for tenants which will be circulated by their landlords, to better explain what this Act means for them.

“By protecting the stock of social housing in Wales, we are ensuring it is available for the long term to provide safe, secure and affordable homes for the people of Wales.” "

Wales can do it. Why not England?
The Welsh Assembly knows what affordable housing means.
Why don't you, Annie?