A bad day for the world

The problem with building new homes is that you have to borrow the money to build em. Otherwise the only funds for building would be the surplus profit from the (low) rents. If it was easy to borrow more capital, then Housing Associations would be doing it in droves. As it is they need government subsidies if they are to build any significant numbers of houses and that is not forthcoming to any worthwhile degree these days.
There are about 28 million dwellings in the UK and I am highly sceptical about the number of 1 million vacant properties. Looks like the estimations of vacant properties is pretty hard to pin down - goes on things like council tax stats (where the council has no record that a property is occupied) along with other source.

PQE, JessM.

www.emptyhomes.com/index.html

The government could pass a bill to make it harder for property owners to just leave places empty as speculative proft making.

Oh right, 200k looks much more believable. Less than 1 in 100 . Bound to be some - it took over a year to finally get MIL's bungalow sold...

And how did this thread get from Trump to housing?
Anyway, just in case nobody has posted it already, the lighter side of Trump's election. Imagined larks from Obama and Biden
www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37972626

And carrying on with the levity - how is it that the Americans have gone from one of the most drop dead sexy middle aged men on the planet to... a physically repulsive creep? Have a sizeable % of women in America absolutely no taste whatsoever?

www.24housing.co.uk/news/number-of-empty-homes-at-lowest-level-since-records-began/

I wonder where all these vacant houses are. I suspect they are mainly in areas where there is little demand. I have yet to see any house empty for more than a few months while on sale or while being renovated in the city of Oxford or anywhere in South Oxfordshire or Berkshire. The rent or sale price the most rundown property commands is so high that very very few owners, corporate or individual, are daft enough to forego the financial gains.

Local Authorities can insist that up to 40% of all properties on new developments have to be 'affordable' in other words sold to Housing Associations for rent/part purchase and our LA does just that. What is more they insist that the affordable houses are mixed in with bigger more expensive houses, not built all together on the worst corner of the site.

Jess, it does begger the questions, what if any respect do those blue collar workers have for woman and what makes those woman vote for a sexual predator

Just because there are lots of vacant houses does not mean that there are lots of long term vacancies. It just means on the average street of 100 houses on the average day, one of them is not occupied. Someone has moved out or died and nobody has moved in yet.

Yes Annie certainly women's status in society was probably not in the forefront of the minds of many voters. But if your car plant has been shut down, the one where you worked for 30 years and was going to provide your kids with a job for life and your house has become un-sellable, then maybe that is their priority and other issues take a back seat.

Have experienced what you speak of Jess, the miners experienced the same , there was no demand to buy houses in the Rhondda or Merthyr valleys

I truly believe it was racism that caused his election win , they had a black president for eight years, must have painful for them

Thanks to MaizieD for the link to the article. It goes a long way to explaining that not all Brexiteers and Trumpettes are racists. Excellent article.

Interesting essay by Uri Harris entitled "Donald Trump and the failure of mainstream social science". He talks about how pollsters got it so wrong and how social scientists, because of their ideological hegemony (holding, or behaving as if they hold, their ideas above science, i.e. morally unchallengeable), cannot seem to self-correct as is expected within scientific disciplines.

And carrying on with the levity - how is it that the Americans have gone from one of the most drop dead sexy middle aged men on the planet to... a physically repulsive creep? Have a sizeable % of women in America absolutely no taste whatsoever?

Obviously not!

That made a very interesting read Bags - I especially enjoyed the following comments/discussion that opened up and the replies by Uri Harris.

I'm not sure that I understand hegemony in that sense bags. It is not the social scientists job to hold ideas above society, rather it is their job to describe how hegemony impinges on society and its behaviour. They develop ideology in order to explain behaviours, these explanations change and develop over time. Just as science and its theory changes and develops over time.

Just read the article. It is all of a piece with the argument you will find in the political sphere, the media and think tanks. Make no mistake there is a huge battle going on for hearts and minds. At present and unfortunately for the foreseeable future the reactionary right is in the ascendancy.

I liked the comments and replies too, anya.

Hegemony's another new word for me today. I might have used it wrongly. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Interesting that women are assumed to vote solely on the sexual attraction of a candidate and not on his policies. I take it it is a joke? But if you think about it men are far more likely to do something like that so perhaps we need someone like Scarlett Johannsen or Charlize Theron to stand as President and all the men would vote for her.

good on you bags

@Monica

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/shocking-waste-of-7500-council-homes-lying-empty-in-london-a3256401.html

I don't think London is an area of low demand for housing.

Kensington and Chelsea has the highest percentage of empty homes in London.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/25/its-like-a-ghost-town-lights-go-out-as-foreign-owners-desert-london-homes

Yes of course it was a joke. That's what "levity" means. 15/11 22.43

Cambridge is another area with a shortage of housing:

opendata.cambridgeshireinsight.org.uk/empty-homes-0

@JessM

Maybe that's why so many Americans are interested in moving to Canada.

LOL - Trudeau???

Kensington and C suffering from foreign-investor-itis - certainly not your typical UK borough. But the properties they own are not going to house the workers.

On another note, it sounds like the Trump administration is already having big problems with the handover - one of the key members of the team has resigned unexpectedly. Just read it via Twitter. Cant find the link now.

Just read the article and the comments. The concern about teachers interested me especially. I don't think most teachers are at all as described, having worked with a large number over the years there are as many right wing as left wing amongst them. The idea that they are somehow introducing left wing ideas is laughable. For every school that has a non-competitive sports day there is one with a competitive one.Most schools now examine and grade people. And the children themselves live competitive lives always trying to see who has the best SATs score or exam result.
It strikes me that he is doing exactly what he accuses social scientists of doing, developing a social theory and taking the moral high ground without producing any evidence to support his views.