Genuine Question - How would YOU solve the UK's housing crisis?

[No One]

I've been thinking for a while how it could be solved. I genuinely want to know, how would DOSBODS members solve the housing problems of the UK>?
Please post more than one liners like "deport xyz", at least a paragraph of what and how it would solve the problem and if you want to go in depth the issues and hurdles to get such a policy through.

[ashestoashes]

there's no crisis, there's just an unwillingness to sleep 12 to a room in shifts like they did in Victorian times

[Pip321]

27 minutes ago, No One said:

I've been thinking for a while how it could be solved. I genuinely want to know, how would DOSBODS members solve the housing problems of the UK>?
Please post more than one liners like "deport xyz", at least a paragraph of what and how it would solve the problem and if you want to go in depth the issues and hurdles to get such a policy through.

There has always been demand...there always will be. In 1986 (at 18) I bought and would have given everything...everything to buy. At the time this was demonstrated because we had no tv for 2 years, no phone line, no holidays, no spending and we struggled for 7 years until we were 25 years old. (with 2 kids) 

So with such enthusiasm for buying why then weren't prices higher.....the reason was finance. No daft multiples and no daft interest only loans...IO was unthinkable. 

The issue is finance...imagine if mortgages were restricted to 3x income plus one. Sellers could ask whatever they wanted but if people cant afford them, then they wont sell. 

Many on here wont have seen sentiment plummet.....its a joy, almost as irrational as the bubble. And the government just keep on doing Help to sell schemes, to keep it all going. It monetises housing, improves GDP, helps the banks etc etc....and its been allowed to go too far. 

We can go on about supply, demand etc...its always been like that. The government don't need to do much....just stop supporting loads of schemes to help sell houses at daft prices and let genuine market forces apply.  And banks shouldn't do IO loans...those used to be temporary bridging facilities and were very expensive....now they are for everyone. 

But market forces will not be allowed to apply to water, energy, food etc etc....so they wont let it happen for housing. 

I sold two houses last year...on the edge of WW3 and still selling for 10 x local wages. Beautiful for me but balmy that people think this is acceptable. 

[King Penda]

If your in a council house and have a spare room and on long term benefits you take a new arrival in for every spare room .single pensioners in council accommodation do the same but only if they refuse a bedsit or similar. We bring in 2000 Gurkhas but demand payment in ears taken from dingy people 20 ears is 12 months here . Single men and women will be housed in purpose built dormitories staffed by ear loving Gurkhas any drugs they are out minus their ears .turn empty shops into hmos for those on benifits without kids . The disabled can have the ground floor has the doorways are wider . Homeowners will be encouraged to take fit Russians and east Europeans in and paid 500 a week to encourage white babys and a return to the nuclear family 

Edited February 24 by King Penda

[Onsamui]

52 minutes ago, No One said:

I've been thinking for a while how it could be solved. I genuinely want to know, how would DOSBODS members solve the housing problems of the UK>?
Please post more than one liners like "deport xyz", at least a paragraph of what and how it would solve the problem and if you want to go in depth the issues and hurdles to get such a policy through.

I did not buy my first house until the end of 1987 at 32.  I went to Australia and saved/sent home cash easily for about 4 years.  Amazing exchange rate at the time, I was lucky as I have no 'establishment' qualifications, just worked and played hard.  No help to buy but there was Miras.

[King Penda]

48 minutes ago, Onsamui said:

I did not buy my first house until the end of 1987 at 32.  I went to Australia and saved/sent home cash easily for about 4 years.  Amazing exchange rate at the time, I was lucky as I have no 'establishment' qualifications, just worked and played hard.  No help to buy but there was Miras.

It helps where you live I decided to grow up (cough) aged around 45 cleared the debt an x left me with and saved 12.5k on minimum wage . Which was probably 6 quid or so then. Bought a house 11 years ago and paid the rest off in under 7 years .still on minimum wage and still did it on my own . The house now is probably worth 80k could I do the same stunt again yes has a single person yes . A couple should slaughter it even on low wages the key was low house prices so having a low hourly wage was not has important 

[THE SOUP DRAGON]

1 hour ago, Pip321 said:

There has always been demand...there always will be. In 1986 (at 18) I bought and would have given everything...everything to buy. At the time this was demonstrated because we had no tv for 2 years, no phone line, no holidays, no spending and we struggled for 7 years until we were 25 years old. (with 2 kids) 

So with such enthusiasm for buying why then weren't prices higher.....the reason was finance. No daft multiples and no daft interest only loans...IO was unthinkable. 

The issue is finance...imagine if mortgages were restricted to 3x income plus one. Sellers could ask whatever they wanted but if people cant afford them, then they wont sell. 

Many on here wont have seen sentiment plummet.....its a joy, almost as irrational as the bubble. And the government just keep on doing Help to sell schemes, to keep it all going. It monetises housing, improves GDP, helps the banks etc etc....and its been allowed to go too far. 

We can go on about supply, demand etc...its always been like that. The government don't need to do much....just stop supporting loads of schemes to help sell houses at daft prices and let genuine market forces apply.  And banks shouldn't do IO loans...those used to be temporary bridging facilities and were very expensive....now they are for everyone. 

But market forces will not be allowed to apply to water, energy, food etc etc....so they wont let it happen for housing. 

I sold two houses last year...on the edge of WW3 and still selling for 10 x local wages. Beautiful for me but balmy that people think this is acceptable. 

100% agree . As soon as mortgage multiples were relaxed house prices followed as sure as night follows day. 
The banks own society now. 

[JoeDavola]

Build modest council houses and flats. Lots of them.

Build them well so that they last for hundreds of years.

Let any taxpayer rent one for as long as they like at minimal cost with the only caveat that they have to look after it, they can't sublet it or sell it, and when they die they have to give it back to the state.

Basically give people a way to escape the private housing market which has become a store of wealth for the rich and yet another wealth transfer from poor to rich.

[spunko]

Get rid of housing benefit if you've not been in the country for 10+ years, would be a start. Since you've basically said you won't accept the real answer - mass deportations (or encouring people to leave en masse).

There isn't a supply problem, there are just too many people and too cheap financing. We've come to the end of one, now we need the end of the other.

Also, new builds are far too concentrated in the SE, levy a huge tax on housebuilders if they build over a certain number of homes in certain regions and/or provide grants to build away from the SE.

[One percent]

8 minutes ago, spunko said:

Get rid of housing benefit if you've not been in the country for 10+ years, would be a start. Since you've basically said you won't accept the real answer - mass deportations (or encouring people to leave en masse).

There isn't a supply problem, there are just too many people and too cheap financing. We've come to the end of one, now we need the end of the other.

Also, new builds are far too concentrated in the SE, levy a huge tax on housebuilders if they build over a certain number of homes in certain regions and/or provide grants to build away from the SE.

Massive house building everywhere. Three new estates been built here in the last few years. Yet one school is closing because there are a lot less kids and the population of the town has fallen by a couple of thousand in the last ten/20 years. Thats representative of around  15\18 percent.  

[GTM]

2 hours ago, spunko said:

Get rid of housing benefit if you've not been in the country for 10+ years, would be a start. Since you've basically said you won't accept the real answer - mass deportations (or encouring people to leave en masse).

I'd get rid of housing benefit entirely. One payment of X amount depending on circumstances and previous NI payments. None of this housing benefit, universal credit, DLA, PIP, council tax benefit, free school meals and all the other hidden extras that make it difficult to calculate what somebody actually gets. You pay your rent out of the money you get. You pay your kids meals at school out of the money you get.

There would be a serious appetite for benefit reform if people became aware just how much many are really getting on bennies.

[Wight Flight]

InterestIng question.

I like numbers I can comprehend, so will bring it down to an Island level.

Our population has barely grown in the last ten years, and we have built a few houses, but the homeless situation is worse than ever and rents have rocketed.

We therefore have more bedrooms per capita than we used to have, but there is still a problem.

I can only conclude that we have a mis-allocation of housing stock. 

Two husbands die, two widows stay in the homes and one couple move over. Net result zero increase in population but an extra house required.

But is not for the government to intervene in this.

My solution is to build really decent retirement villages like in the US.

Every 100 one bed units could free up 3 or 400 rooms for families.f

[sarahbell]

4m single mums. 

Where do the dads live? 

Old people in big houses. 

Too many migrants. Too many students. 

[Boon]

The biggest problem seems to me that anyone that 'solves' the problem will be unelected at the next election, so there is no motivation at all to actually to it.

Even solving the problem - assuming this means everyone being able to access some kind of housing - would come with a lot of side effects like social disorder. 

Housing building is a cartel with housebuilders sitting on land banks, either nationalise them for their property rights and build them out, or tax the builders for unused plots to either encourage building or selling to someone who would build. This would then lead to a more varied type of property instead of the 'luxury' flats all the housebuilders purport to build.

Ie the free market dictates that there is little demand at £400k for luxury flats because people don't have that money, but there would be some demand for £200k cheapo build densified flats on the same spot. But there is no real incentive for a builder to build the cheap ones if they are lower margins and profits from unrealised gains on the land can be booked.

[darkmarket]

One vote per net tax-paying household. All other reforms can start from there.

[onlyme]

18 minutes ago, Boon said:

The biggest problem seems to me that anyone that 'solves' the problem will be unelected at the next election, so there is no motivation at all to actually to it.

Even solving the problem - assuming this means everyone being able to access some kind of housing - would come with a lot of side effects like social disorder. 

Housing building is a cartel with housebuilders sitting on land banks, either nationalise them for their property rights and build them out, or tax the builders for unused plots to either encourage building or selling to someone who would build. This would then lead to a more varied type of property instead of the 'luxury' flats all the housebuilders purport to build.

Ie the free market dictates that there is little demand at £400k for luxury flats because people don't have that money, but there would be some demand for £200k cheapo build densified flats on the same spot. But there is no real incentive for a builder to build the cheap ones if they are lower margins and profits from unrealised gains on the land can be booked.

There's 6,000 odd viallages the UK, set the locl councils a mandatory target of 10 reasonably priced building plots (maybe with specified house type or selection) per year and you'd have 60K new homes which may actually be beneficial - keep local economies / builders going with a mix of self build. Drop in the ocean to inviting 1M economic migrants and uninvited 10K;s more.

Think the migrant issue is going to blow up anyway as the kickback and fury if/once the job losses really get going is going to be parliament breaking.

[Option5]

2 hours ago, GTM said:

I'd get rid of housing benefit entirely. One payment of X amount depending on circumstances and previous NI payments. None of this housing benefit, universal credit, DLA, PIP, council tax benefit, free school meals and all the other hidden extras that make it difficult to calculate what somebody actually gets. You pay your rent out of the money you get. You pay your kids meals at school out of the money you get.

There would be a serious appetite for benefit reform if people became aware just how much many are really getting on bennies.

Better to pay the rent, school meals, council tax etc directly and just hand out minimal cash for food, clothes etc. Also no credit facilities for those living on benefits and huge prison sentences for loan sharks.

[GTM]

12 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Better to pay the rent, school meals, council tax etc directly and just hand out minimal cash for food, clothes etc. Also no credit facilities for those living on benefits and huge prison sentences for loan sharks.

I'm indebted to @Frank Hovis for putting into words a phenomenon I had seen with my own parents. That even as they age many adults never progress beyond the idea of pocket money. My parents divorced as they wasted money in different ways (I grew up on a council estate). My mother nickel and dimed money away. An expert on spending a few quid here and a few quid there and buying absolutely nothing. My dad lived week to week, but when there was some extra money he'd spend it on a big purchase immediately. At one point in a 3 bedroom, 1 reception room house we had 5 TVs.

Neither grew out of it, which is why my inheritance will be a doughnut. But despite their profligate ways they still had to operate in an environment where some money had to be held back to pay bills and buy food. I dread to think how chaotic our life would have been if the benefits regime we have now had been in place then.

[MightyTharg]

Nationalize the “National” Trust

Ban horse riding. Ban golf. Or just make it fair and charge them the same price per acre of land as someone who wants a home to live in.

Now you have three or four times as much land for housing. Tesla houses cost 40,000, I’m sure you could find  something cheaper for the gimmigrants.

Use the savings on housing benefit to buy a few gunboats.

It’s easy enough to solve the problem. The problem is that nobody wants to solve it.

 

[Phil]

Make eating a hanging offence.

[GTM]

6 hours ago, MightyTharg said:

Tesla houses cost 40,000

FFS. FElon claims to be living in a prefab he bought from this lot https://www.boxabl.com/ . He had literally nothing to do with it except supposedly buying one to live in, yet here he is getting all the credit for it.

He's not going to let you suck his cock you know.

If you believe that fElon actually lives in a Boxabl Casita then I have a bridge to sell you.

[wherebee]

1. bring back parker morris standards for all new builds

2. drop the net zero bollocks which imposes mental requirements on new builds which don't actually do anything useful

3. all purchases of residential property by a foreign owner or legal entity (including trusts) has an additional annual charge of 10% of the sale price.  Other countries do it.

4. Banks have to keep all loans to residential properties on their own books for ten years (prevents the onsell of shit)

5. zero migration target, with MP, ministers and senior civil servant pensions (all PPS, all department heads, all department deputies) inked to hitting the target.  No hit the target, no pension in their first year of retirement.  No hit target year two, no pension year two.  

6.  Pay each illegal migrant 50,000GBP to leave the country. Free plane ticket. Claimable once per person, biometrically applied, Only applies to people here before 1/1/2024.  Cheaper than a civil war.

7.  Each migrant has to pay an additional 10,000 tax per year, for the rest of their lives, with that money specifically set aside for public housing builds.  If you don't pay, you are deported and your employer fined for the cost of deportation.  If the UK is so great, pay for it.  If it's not, fuck off.  I'd pay that to stay in Australia, and see it as a fair charge, frankly.

8.  All public housing only available if you can speak and read english to a GCSE level.  Natives and non natives alike.  Victorian poor were desperate for education.  Bring that back.

You do most of those, and the problem sorts itself out within a decade.

[Pip321]

9 hours ago, Option5 said:

Better to pay the rent, school meals, council tax etc directly and just hand out minimal cash for food, clothes etc. Also no credit facilities for those living on benefits and huge prison sentences for loan sharks.

I agree with this in principal…why give fuckwits money for fags then have them queuing at a food bank. From that angle I prefer this and in particular disabled people should have things provided and shouldn’t need to be budgeting as such.

Benefits should be minimal and feel like a temporary solution. 

However, there is one problem….civil servants, inefficiency and vested interests. 

So school meals and taxis fairs are now provided freely (just an example) then the ‘business’ providing them (private or public) ends up doing it at such a balmy cost eg minimum taxi fare charged to council is £30 etc.

There is no common good….everyone just wants what they can get from the system.

The private sector set up businesses to support old and disabled then ends up just trying to make tons of money from it rather than servicing a community. And the public sector then try….well, say no more, just bob into your local council offices and ask to see someone.🤦🏻‍♂️

Solution is to encourage Ukraine to join NATO, antagonise a Russian leader not renowned for peace, start a war, monetise it with old weapons etc and drag it on until economic collapse, steal all the money, start WW3 to avoid public revolt against leaders….then press the reset button.

Oh, wait….we already have this in hand. For the greater good 🤦🏻‍♂️

[UmBongo]

All rented council housing and Housing Association to be allocated on the basis of good character over need. My local council tend to do this when there is a brand new affordable rented home is built and ready to let. They want to minimise the chance that shitheads will rip apart a brand new property.

Prioirity for affordable housing given to British Citizens.

I would also ban the subdivision of any houses being turned into flats, bedsits or HMOs.

I like the idea that I think @GTM suggested about getting rid of Housing Benefit. Seems odd that this can be easily claimed in social housing with little scrutiny when the rents are already low. I would probably keep it in place for private rented housing (Local Housing Allowance?) and maybe reform it somehow.

[MightyTharg]

5 hours ago, GTM said:

FFS. FElon claims to be living in a prefab he bought from this lot https://www.boxabl.com/ . He had literally nothing to do with it except supposedly buying one to live in, yet here he is getting all the credit for it.

He's not going to let you suck his cock you know.

If you believe that fElon actually lives in a Boxabl Casita then I have a bridge to sell you.

Got the price wrong. $10,000. We spend more than twice that PER YEAR housing some gimmigrants.

 

Edited February 25 by MightyTharg