Letter: A solution to housing shortage problem
The problems facing this country are multiple. One problem is the shortage of housing.
This is due in part to the fact that 500,000 homes are currently empty and in need of refurbishment. This is one problem that will need to be tackled through investment.
Because of the economic crisis there is a credit shortage and banks are reluctant to lend to prospective home buyers. The deterioration in savings rates has increased the burden on buyers who are trying to save for a deposit on their first home.
The Government’s taxpayer backed loans and state sponsored subsidies are economically deficient as the state is increasing its national debt burden if these loans default.
In helping home buyers, the common sense solution would be to implement the right to buy revolution to private home buyers. Low interest rates will not be permanent and once those increase mortgages will become more expensive.
The home buyer discount would be set at 11 per cent and would be indexed in line with inflation – the housing sector is volatile and there needs to be some stabilisation. We need to increase home ownership and credit at affordable levels.
We cannot base our financial security on assumptions because the interest rates can be volatile and we can not have repossessions disrupting economic expansion.
The housing shortage will continue specifically in our towns and cities with overcrowding being a major problem.
At local and national level there needs to be a principle in housing; local homes for local people. We can not continue with fewer and fewer homes.
Immigration has been one part of the problem and that is one reason why we need proper immigration controls to regulate the entry of new people into the country.
The Government continues with gimmicks.
Oliver Healey
English Democrat
Hadley
Comments for: "Letter: A solution to housing shortage problem"
Bill
Whilst I would support Mr Healey's view that there is a housing shortage the methodology for dealing with it ahould NOT be a strategy which incurs more personal debt.
In a struggling economy credit needs to be firmly reigned back so that individuals, as well as local and national government, live within their means.
Encouraging people to take on relatively massive long-term debt is not the solution. The answer for the moment is to get the banks to lend to the housing associations and get more properly managed rental properties built.
This in turn will exert downward pressure on commercial letting rates and ease the problem more directly.
ANDREW FINCH
Well said Bill
John Bowden
I agree with your comments Bill, though if this were to happen i can see it creating a problem for the buy to let brigade. If rents decrease as they should they will start to default on their loans as they were also taken in by the housing bubble scam and brought their properties with 100+ % mortgages buying artificially inflated priced properties. If we want to stop this happening again, or another share selling scam like the dot com bubble then we need to bring back the legislation that successive governments have removed and maybe lock up the leaders of those businesses that commit the scams and not give them million £ golden hand shakes
Katherine de Gama
Well said, Bill.
On a dirrent issue, while no one wants to find their home occupied it s a shame squatting has just cemone a criminal offence. The targets are almost always speculators rather than residents.
The Original Jake
Didn't easy access to debt finance fuel the house price boom in the first place?
Kat
Yep, easy money is no solutio. I was recently told that my old house is on the mkt for almost times what I paid for it in 87. Wat home for young people apexcept housing assocs and sharedowersip
Dr. Benjamin Rush
Kat, take more water with it.
Kat de Gama
Sadly, it's an eyesight problem and the new website won't allow me to expand text on an iPad.
ian
Many will blame immigration but this is only a small part of the problem.Too many people own too many properties. People with money can always gazump ordinary buyers ,this in turn forces up house prices out of reach.
Building more quality social housing is the answer ,this would in turn drive down rents and house prices but this is exactly what the government doesnt want.
ANDREW FINCH
We need to put a local cap on private rents , ok private rents are governed by local demand however many private working renters are being subsidized through housing benefit in order to meet the monthly private rents which on average are being put up by £25-£50 per year wages have stagnated , this is one of the hidden problem benefits which this government has fail to talk about or acknowledge but is costing the country millions.
Devilschair
Govt would never attack the private market with such a damaging thing as the 'right to buy' for their tenants - this government and its human shield represents the landlords as ever, so don't hold out for that! How about letting councils build using the honey-pot of 'right to buy' money - at least there would be democratic input - rather that monetarist theft.
Imagine where a block of houses rented out by the local council, lived in by while young people saved for mortgage deposits on the house they took time to find - a steady turnover over homes for each generation - a battery of dwellings and homes for the young and old against the gales of stupid finance decisions and greed by those whose first million is a long time ago and now its a game.
No - it could work you know.