PokerTime

Numbers, I do not use wikipedia for my information. I have been researching for a year now for a major project on the subject. That research has been in depth and sourced from credible data sources and noteable experts on the subject. Prior to 1980, council tenants could only buy their home if they had the say so of the LA. It was not a guaranteeed right. There are many reasons why an LA at this time might choose to sell a property (maintenance costs/ undesireability etc) but equally an LA could choose not to sell property. The Thatcher policy of 1980 gave the LAs no power to say no. The result is that more than half of all council properties have been bought under the right to buy scheme - 1.9 million homes, that have not been replaced. This was NOT happening before 1980, no matter how many people you know who were allowed to purchase before 1980. The loss of that stock CAN be squarely placed at the foot of Thatcher. Blair and Brown did not remove the scheme but they did reduce the level of discount on offer to discourage the trend. The coalition have since increased the discounts to more than under Thatcher's government.

Let's just correct that numbers. There have always been conditions under which LAs could sell property, but they had strict guidelines that are very different to the open season that Thatcher's scheme created. You only have to look at the number of properties lost since the 80s compared to before to see the dramatic impact. Let's not try and pretend that Thatcher was not instrumental in this depletion. It is also very clear that for all the hype offered at the time about giving social tenants a way onto the propery ladder (i.e. good policy) that the regulation also made replacement of that social housing impossible (bad policy).

Quite, and under Thatcher LAs were not allowed to use the proceeds from the sale of homes for building/ buying new property. It was a deliberate act to diminish the level of social housing.

Some or all of the discount has to be repayed if the property is sold within five years of purchase.

According to the international laws of the cheese universe, it is advised to have one cheese knife per 3.8 people at any gathering. This enables cheese to flow swiftly and seemlessly, and of course avoids Stilton contamination ;)

No that's not true ????. Pre the 1980's, a single average income could buy a home as average house prices were 3x anverage salaries. Many working class people moved out of council property to do just that. People were not trapped in low rental accomodation in the way they are now. There was a better turnover of social homes also. The social homes built between WW1 and II are still standing and will still be standing in another 100 years time. Yes there were design flaws with many of the high rise buildings of the 60's, not forseen at the time, but that's hardly the bulk of social housing. There are many houses and masionettes built during the 70s that also are still standing. Social housing has taken many forms since it was first conceived. The flawed properties of the 60s are only a part of that story.

I agree with all of that LM. Social Housing already accounts for 17% of all stock in the UK. I'd argue it needs to be closer to 30% of all stock in order to ease the growing problems. That would be also closer to where it was before all these problems started. The demographics of our capitalist plutocrasy haven't suddenly shifted. The percentage of people at the bottom is the same as it always has been. All we've done is destroy any hope of upward social mobility they would have had in the past. All the data shows that. London too isn't suddenly faced with new problems here. It has always attracted people to it, in great numbers, like all captial cities - and housing provision has always been a challenge. Again, the slump in social house building since the 80's in a major reason we are where we are. Driving the poorest out of London is not any answer.

Oh I see :D

Sorry LondonM. I did indeed misunderstand Lozs point. If we accept that Landlords can only charge what the market is willing to pay, you then have to ask why millions of people need Housing Benefit (a million of them in full time work). I also can think of many people who see more than half their salaries swallowed up be rent who would like to pay less, but can't. So rent is being dictacted by whom exactly? Wealthier people who can afford those rents? I would suggest that what has happened goes more like this. House values rise, Landlords raise rents in line, people in rental accomodation become desperate to buy (rather than spend all the money on rent). which in turn fuels demand for property, forcing prices up and up. At the same time, affordable social housing diminishes by half through right to buy, pushing demand up within the private rented sector...and so on and so on............ My point is that it's a fine line between willing to pay and having no choice but to pay. Interestingly, when the coalition introduced new Housing Benefit caps, they predicted it would force Landlords who rent to Local Authorities and HB recipients to lower their rents. That hasn't happened in the South East. Instead, Landlords have removed themselves from LA housing lists altogether, choosing instead to no longer rent to HB recipients. Have a look at this graph too (from Shelter). Look at the shutdown in council home building, started by Thatcher. If you add to that, that a third of ex-local authority homes are now in the ownership of private landlords (so of the 3 million council homes that existed before right-to-buy, one million are now in the hands of private landlords), it's not hard to see the impact of that on private rental demand. Fizzmoll, that data is based on comparing average salary to average house price. It's a simple equation. The figures are in the public domain through various credible data collection sources. The Office of National Statistics reports detailed data on salaries every three months. House prices are monitored by various bodies inculding the Land Registry, who also report on average prices regularly. The average home in London costs approx ?300,000 and rising. The average salary in London is ?27,800. Here's a well researched article from the Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/02/london-house-prices-rise-bubble-nationwide

It's very easy to speak with Adolfo Gonzalez, the Arboricultural Officer at Southwark. He's an extremely qualified tree specialist. It's very easy to assume a tree is healthy, because it looks healthy. There are many reasons why trees have to be treated. When I enquired about trees local to me, and work being done on them, he was happy to walk me round every single tree and explain the work and what needed doing and why. One tree even had a huge hole in the base of it's trunk, but only an ultrasound could show the extent of it. He was happy to show the scans from various measuring devices they use to survey what's going on inside a tree (unseen to the naked eye). He also pointed out where damage was indeed the result of poor management of tress in the past by his predacessors, and explained what he intended to do to correct that. So get in touch with him if you are concerned. Like me, you may learn a whole range of things about trees that you didn't know before. He also made me aware that I could apply to the Cleaner Greener Safer scheme for funds to replace lost trees. A tree costs around ?800 and that includes maintenance for the first three year from the supplier of the tree. There really is no conspiracy to unecessarily butcher trees.

That's not strictly true either. A landlord can set the rent wherever they want to. They choose to set it as high as they can get away with. The only exception to this are those Landlords repaying mortgages (only 19% of rental properties are subject to this) who have to charge enough to cover that mortgage plus other management expenses. The vast majority of private sector Landlords could charge less. Historically, landlords have typically been profiteers, often caring little for the plight of those they rent to. That is why housing programmes, rent controls and things like the Housing Act were needed in the first place. And even with the Housing and Tenant and Landlord Acts, enforcement is poor, with tenants often not knowing their rights. Of course, there are good landlords and bad tenants too, but let's not kid ourselves that landlords are at the mercy of the market. They are business people, who work the market to their own profit. Of course, there is another solution that no-one seems to dare suggest. That is for local authorities to mass build to replace all the council homes lost to the free market. Council homes are subject to rent controls and in the 70s provide homes for one in three. There is only one reason why the majority of social house building (where it happens) is given over to Housing Associations. That is because HA tenants have less rights than LA tenants. The government doesn't want tenants to have security, any more than it wants tenants to have affordable rents.

Most of the people being forced out of London LondonM are those who are from London. The traditional cockney working classes. As my post above shows, home ownership in London isn't what everyone thinks it is. 42% of people are renting. They have no choice but to. And of those private rented properties, only 19% are mortgaged. So that's a lot of property in the hands of wealthy people. It would be absolutely possible to rent cap those properties without impacting on the landlords investment. As for construction, there are already incentives and government sweeteners on offer for house building. But construction companies don't want to build affordable housing. They are in business to make money, and as much of it as possible. This is the problem with all public/private partenership arrangements. London has always had huge demand for housing. It's a capital city. The post war building programmes, both the 1930s and the 1950's (and 60's) were meaningful responses to decent housing shortages. And they were responses that built according to need. So affordable homes were built near to docks and factories to house workers. There is no such thought out response now - just pursuit of profit.

Worldwiser. Firstly, there are countless properties that lie empty at any one time, and in some of the wealthiest areas, homes lay empty for months and years. There is a shortage of affordable properties for people to buy yes, but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about the shortage of properties to buy vs the numerous properties owned by any one person for rental. Buy-to-Let HAS inflated the market and is one of many reasons why there are less properties available for first time buyers and those wanting to upgrade/size. The issue is that a few people are profitting from property portfolios they were allowed to acquire with NO capital investment and are charging high rents to cover the mortgage on those rental properties. That is why many people in decent paid jobs can't get deposits together. It also shifts wealth from the many to the few and an older demographic of the few. The baby boomer generation really have had the best of everything, and continue to do so - with provisions, pensions and benefits for the over 65s being left untouched whilst everyone else pays for it. Here are some facts for you. There are around 25 million homes in the UK of which 70% are owner occupied. Only one in ten is privately rented. However in London, home ownership is only 58%. A quarter of homes are not properly maintained or constructed. House prices have tripled since 1996. In 1985 the average house cost 3.4x the average wage. Now it is 6.1x and in London it as almost 9x. It is thought that four out of ten people buying a first home now need parental help. Yes the demographics of how people live is changing but this has little to do with the housing inflation of the past 30 years. SJ is right. people are paying stupid money through sheer panic! It's the same kind of speculative frenzy that leads to stock market crashes. Homes have actually been demolished in the North of the country over the last three decades because there is no-one to live in them. The pressure is greatest in the South East, but we have a coalition that seem determined to price the lowest waged and poorest out of the South East altogether. Here's a perfect example of the kind of thing that has gone on. 1.9 million council homes have been sold under right to buy since the 80's. There are around 1.8 million people on council waiting lists around the country currently. 40% of those homes sold are now in the hands of private landlords charging commercial rent levels. One of those landlords is Charles Gow, the former housing minister of Thatchers Government. He owns owns at least 40 former council flats on one South London estate with his wife! There has been a concerted effort to reduce affordable housing for the the poorest and lowest waged on one hand, and other concerted efforts to accelerate demand to buy on the other hand, by offering mortgage products that keep the property investors coming. Building hoards of new properties won't come fast enough to fix that, and it has to be said that the kinds of properties that are being built are hardly addressing affordability - which after all is the real issue isn't it.

sorry posted the same thing twice!

Owning two houses, when you actually only need one to house a family, at the expense of another family, giving more than half their household income to pay your second mortgage is ethical? This is the crux of the moral question. Yes we are all driven by a desire to look after OUR family, OUR kids future and so on. Well what about ALL families and ALL kids futures?

That's actually a very good suggestion Penguin, and I think an example of the kind of tinkering that could be done without destroying huge numbers of those already invested. But no party in government or in opposition is interested. All we keep hearing is that we need to build more affordable housing! Something which all parties conceed can't happy quickly enough to solve anything. I disagree on both points. We have more than enough housing for everyone. It's just that some own too much of it. Building new homes means nothing if we do nothing about the sell off of social housing through right to buy (40% of which bought since the 80's is now in the ownership of provate landlords) and buy-to-let investment schemes. We are losing affordable homes quicker than we can replace them. And why does construction of new homes take so long? Regulation, consultation, planning all make building anywhere a lengthy and complex process.

Depending on where you need to get to from Brixton, you might want to look at overground train travel from Herne Hill or Peckham Rye, or Forest Hill.

The problem is that we are looking at solutions that aren't designed for closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Rent caps work in an economy that's already had them for a long time, and indeed social housing rents are regulated by various formulas in this country and have always been. The problem with the UK is that the overwhemling bulk of private rental property still isn't paid for (i.e still mortgaged). 'Buy to Let' has been incredibly damaging to the rental market and has limited the range of workable solutions possible. Gordon Brown was warned at the time of the possible consequences, but chose to ignore them. Regulation that may affect the ability of landlords to repay mortgage and other fees becomes very problematic. London has unique problems of course. A sizeable percentage (around 20%) of the properties that will be on offer when the new Elephant and Castle development is buld have already been sold to Chinese investors. That's before a single brick is laid, and those buyers are not planning to live there! If we are going to change anything for the better, we have to find ways to reduce the attraction of property as a comodity, and get back to buying a home, really being about buying a HOME. That has to be a range of things, from increased tax levels on investment purchases, to breaking the house building monopoly held by certain contractors. Rent controls may play a part in that, if carefully designed.

I saw a little girl on American TV today called 'London'.......

In the 70s, one in three people lived in council housing. So power within the rental market has completely shifted back to private landlords. Basically the housing market in one big pyramid scheme, and has been increasingly so over the last 25 years. Every time the fodder at the bottom of the pyramid dries up, some new scheme is invented to keep it coming. Now you have government backed loans for deposits for example. Well that doesn't really help anything, bar allowing people unable to save deposits to take on more debt. Like all pyramid schemes it will one day collapse. I think also that property inflation is tied in with the looming pensions crisis. It's a short term fix that sucessive governments have facilitated. But it can't go on as it has. The 'I must own a house' mentality is born out of fear. Fear of never being able to afford anything if you don't act asap. And also the shift away from stable and secure tenancies also feeds that fear.

You are correct Rah (see my post above). Mellors is writing nonsense.

That's not correct Mellors. The conditions for a tenant to exercise 'right to buy' are as follows; It?s your only or main home It?s self-contained You?re a secure tenant You?ve had a public sector landlord (eg a council, housing association or NHS trust) for 5 years - it doesn?t have to be 5 years in a row There are different discount levels for houses and flats. Houses You get a 35% discount if you?ve been a public sector tenant for 5 years. The discount goes up by 1% for every extra year you?ve been a public sector tenant, up to a maximum of 60% ? or ?75,000 across England and ?100,000 in London boroughs (whichever is lower). Flats You get a 50% discount if you?ve been a public sector tenant for 5 years. The discount goes up by 2% for every extra year you?ve been a public sector tenant, up to a maximum of 70% ? or ?75,000 across England and ?100,000 in London boroughs (whichever is lower). So to qualify for the maximum discount on a flat in London for example, you'd need to have been a tenant for 30 years....but after just five years, you can get 50k off a flat with a market value of just ?100k.

It's just a bit of fun WG. I have cats and admire the work that Doris Day has done with her animal foundation. Just as I admire the work of Celia Hammond and the PDSA etc. There is really no offence meant from me and I'm pretty sure SJack meant no harm either (although I can't speak for him of course).

LOL

Years ago I had my old car broken into in Brixton. They levered back the driver door to get in. I'd rather they'd smashed a window because the cost of a new door was huge. I then put mouse traps under the front seats and parked the car in the same spot a week later. Just as I predicted they bent the already damaged door back and broke in. On both occasions there was nothing in the vehicle to steal, except for the now sprung mouse traps :D It's alll very well saying don't leave valuables in the car, but theives will break in anyway, expecting to find something in the glove compartment etc. My current vehicle was broken into before Christmas outside my home. They screw drivered the lock. But that at least is something I can repair myself for less than ?30. Mine was one of two broken into - the other had its window smashed. Police told us there are thieves operating locally looking for satnavs and targetting taxis and commercial vehicles. My view is that its better to leave nothing valuable in the car but don't think that theives look for vehicles that are easier to break into anymore. Theives can find a way to break into ANY car.