Housing

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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

We need a bit of everything but I agree that more dense housing, especially near the centre of Edinburgh is needed. Most developments have a proportion of flats as you enter the development.
People still want gardens when they have a family and there is no shortage of space. We have enough land. It’s political will that is lacking.


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You might like this simply for it being one of the worst things written on housing. It's went viral for being hilariously bad, it is the Torygraph after all. She says we don't need new houses the problem is houses are too expensive ehhh...

UK also has the second lowest number of unused housing stock, under 2% Iceland is only lower and average is 10%.

She'll be glad she's blocked since many homes and I'm not surprised someone has found she owns a £3.5 million pound home

https://archive.ph/IZiTg

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

You might like this simply for it being one of the worst things written on housing. It's went viral for being hilariously bad, it is the Torygraph after all. She says we don't need new houses the problem is houses are too expensive ehhh...

UK also has the second lowest number of unused housing stock, under 2% Iceland is only lower and average is 10%.

She'll be glad she's blocked since many homes and I'm not surprised someone has found she owns a £3.5 million pound home

https://archive.ph/IZiTg

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According to Shelter there are over a quarter of a million long term empty homes in England.

There are 43,000 empty homes in Scotland.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housin...ere-in-the-uk/

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Originally Posted by greenginger

According to Shelter there are over a quarter of a million long term empty homes in England.

There are 43,000 empty homes in Scotland.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housin...ere-in-the-uk/

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I would treble the council tax on empty homes after 6 months. And I would bring in a tourist tax for short term lets.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

You might like this simply for it being one of the worst things written on housing. It's went viral for being hilariously bad, it is the Torygraph after all. She says we don't need new houses the problem is houses are too expensive ehhh...

UK also has the second lowest number of unused housing stock, under 2% Iceland is only lower and average is 10%.

She'll be glad she's blocked since many homes and I'm not surprised someone has found she owns a £3.5 million pound home

https://archive.ph/IZiTg

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Imagine you passion in life was stopping houses getting built.[emoji2369]


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

We need a bit of everything but I agree that more dense housing, especially near the centre of Edinburgh is needed. Most developments have a proportion of flats as you enter the development.
People still want gardens when they have a family and there is no shortage of space. We have enough land. It’s political will that is lacking.


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I'm certainly no expert, but from what I see spacious family homes are being built at a significant rate around Edinburgh already. Anecdotally a little slower right now because the market is so stagnant and so builders presumably aren't throwing up houses as quickly as they can when people aren't as quick to buy them with interest rates as high as they are.

But in terms of continuously growing developments/areas: Cammo, Queensferry, Wallyford, The wisp, Shawfair, Calderwood, Kirkliston, Winchburgh all seem to have sprung up with hundreds/thousands of new family homes.

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Originally Posted by danhibees1875

I'm certainly no expert, but from what I see spacious family homes are being built at a significant rate around Edinburgh already. Anecdotally a little slower right now because the market is so stagnant and so builders presumably aren't throwing up houses as quickly as they can when people aren't as quick to buy them with interest rates as high as they are.

But in terms of continuously growing developments/areas: Cammo, Queensferry, Wallyford, The wisp, Shawfair, Calderwood, Kirkliston, Winchburgh all seem to have sprung up with hundreds/thousands of new family homes.

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I think that there are some positive things happening, we just need more.
To speed builders up, I would start taxing the properties from 18 months after planning is granted.
If they are not ready to build after planning is granted then they should be required to sell the land on.


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Originally Posted by greenginger

According to Shelter there are over a quarter of a million long term empty homes in England.

There are 43,000 empty homes in Scotland.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housin...ere-in-the-uk/

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30 mill homes so that's closer to 1%. Germany, Ireland, France and Holland have around 8%. That would mean millions of vacant homes, slashed prices and no housing problem.

With half a million net immigrants in the next few years and a fraction of that in homes being built. We'll soon have zero available homes. It's a disaster

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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

I think that there are some positive things happening, we just need more.
To speed builders up, I would start taxing the properties from 18 months after planning is granted.
If they are not ready to build after planning is granted then they should be required to sell the land on.


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I'm looking to move to a new development that won't be finished for c.3 years. Planning was probably approved some time ago too I would imagine. I think Developments do, and always will, take longer than 18 months from planning to completion just through normal process.

I guess they could just create admin by applying for permission to build 100 smaller developments and spread out their applications over several years. :greengrin

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Originally Posted by danhibees1875

I'm looking to move to a new development that won't be finished for c.3 years. Planning was probably approved some time ago too I would imagine. I think Developments do, and always will, take longer than 18 months from planning to completion just through normal process.

I guess they could just create admin by applying for permission to build 100 smaller developments and spread out their applications over several years. :greengrin

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Often developments are held up waiting for power , drainage being supplied to sites.
or schools, medical etc services being made available.

It’s not always the developers who delay developments

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Originally Posted by greenginger

Often developments are held up waiting for power , drainage being supplied to sites.
or schools, medical etc services being made available.

It’s not always the developers who delay developments

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I'm sure that's true also. :agree:

It just seems like fundamentally, you're not going to have 100 houses built in such a short time. Even if you did, you'd then struggle to sell them all so quickly.

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Originally Posted by danhibees1875

I'm sure that's true also. :agree:

It just seems like fundamentally, you're not going to have 100 houses built in such a short time. Even if you did, you'd then struggle to sell them all so quickly.

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Struggle to sell houses?[emoji102]
Seriously though, whatever the reasons, we are building too slowly and it needs to change.


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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

Struggle to sell houses?[emoji102]
Seriously though, whatever the reasons, we are building too slowly and it needs to change.


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Yes. Houses are moving relatively slowly at the moment.

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Originally Posted by danhibees1875

Yes. Houses are moving relatively slowly at the moment.

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Agree, I’ve just moved into a new build estate and I think they’ve only sold two houses in the last three months. Building houses faster won’t change that unless they’re giving them away under market value.

There’s been several houses here that have gone to reserved then a few weeks later have become available again, I guess the buyers have struggled to sell their own house or can’t get a mortgage.

When we were looking some builders wouldn’t even take a deposit from us unless we sold our own house and moved in to rented which we weren’t willing to do.

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Originally Posted by hibee

Agree, I’ve just moved into a new build estate and I think they’ve only sold two houses in the last three months. Building houses faster won’t change that unless they’re giving them away under market value.

There’s been several houses here that have gone to reserved then a few weeks later have become available again, I guess the buyers have struggled to sell their own house or can’t get a mortgage.

When we were looking some builders wouldn’t even take a deposit from us unless we sold our own house and moved in to rented which we weren’t willing to do.

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If you can’t sell then maybe you are higher than market value?


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Originally Posted by hibee

Agree, I’ve just moved into a new build estate and I think they’ve only sold two houses in the last three months. Building houses faster won’t change that unless they’re giving them away under market value.

There’s been several houses here that have gone to reserved then a few weeks later have become available again, I guess the buyers have struggled to sell their own house or can’t get a mortgage.

When we were looking some builders wouldn’t even take a deposit from us unless we sold our own house and moved in to rented which we weren’t willing to do.

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Building more houses lowers the price, I know that is obvious but some don't get that. The interest rates are probably the biggest deterrent, they should drop early next year although it will take a year for them to drop to nearer what they were pre pandemic.

If there is 250k empty homes, 250k were built last year and net migration is estimated to be 500k in the next 2 years, there soon won't be a house spare. Going to see homelessness numbers breaking records unless someone gets their finger out on housebuilding

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

Building more houses lowers the price, I know that is obvious but some don't get that. The interest rates are probably the biggest deterrent, they should drop early next year although it will take a year for them to drop to nearer what they were pre pandemic.

If there is 250k empty homes, 250k were built last year and net migration is estimated to be 500k in the next 2 years, there soon won't be a house spare. Going to see homelessness numbers breaking records unless someone gets their finger out on housebuilding

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Yet the only thing that’s actually lowered prices in the last 30 or so years has been the cost of money or availability of money.

The 89 crash was at least in part due to MIRAS removal…ergo having a mortgage cost more.

The 2008 crash was caused by a liquidity crunch (no lending = no borrowing)

This time it’s due to super fast interest rate rises. Cost of ownership up = price paid down.


On the flip side you have had a myriad of government interventions that have added liquidity to the market Help to Buy, Stamp duty holidays etc etc. and super low interest rates that have driven up prices over a very long time.

Then you add in punitive stamp rates higher up the ladder that help to squash availability in the secondary market and you can see that saying the volume of building is directly correlated to prices, and is the primary driver of them, is ignoring a huge number of other factors and drivers on the overall market.

It’s hard to imagine prices would have been so stretched if the government had left well alone and interest rates had been at ‘normal’ levels for the last decade.

So sure building numbers do matter, or actually maybe more the mix of building matters (as Edinburgh has just proven building more than anyone else does not a housing crisis avert).

But the cost of housing is not simply driven by new build housing numbers (not least due to the fact new builds are often priced as premium products and thus raise the average costs). It is of course A factor but just building more is far from a silver bullet.

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Originally Posted by RyeSloan

Yet the only thing that’s actually lowered prices in the last 30 or so years has been the cost of money or availability of money.

The 89 crash was at least in part due to MIRAS removal…ergo having a mortgage cost more.

The 2008 crash was caused by a liquidity crunch (no lending = no borrowing)

This time it’s due to super fast interest rate rises. Cost of ownership up = price paid down.


On the flip side you have had a myriad of government interventions that have added liquidity to the market Help to Buy, Stamp duty holidays etc etc. and super low interest rates that have driven up prices over a very long time.

Then you add in punitive stamp rates higher up the ladder that help to squash availability in the secondary market and you can see that saying the volume of building is directly correlated to prices, and is the primary driver of them, is ignoring a huge number of other factors and drivers on the overall market.

It’s hard to imagine prices would have been so stretched if the government had left well alone and interest rates had been at ‘normal’ levels for the last decade.

So sure building numbers do matter, or actually maybe more the mix of building matters (as Edinburgh has just proven building more than anyone else does not a housing crisis avert).

But the cost of housing is not simply driven by new build housing numbers (not least due to the fact new builds are often priced as premium products and thus raise the average costs). It is of course A factor but just building more is far from a silver bullet.

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It's definitely not only decided by building more many things change the market, as i saidthe biggest factor just now is inflation. The list of events you put up were major events that changed prices. But more houses obviously help lower prices.

Also not helping is British people want big houses with gardens whilst in Europe there is much more good quality apartments. Its depressing seeing these semi detached villages with next to no social housing and ludicrous prices.

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

It's definitely not only decided by building more many things change the market, as i saidthe biggest factor just now is inflation. The list of events you put up were major events that changed prices. But more houses obviously help lower prices.

Also not helping is British people want big houses with gardens whilst in Europe there is much more good quality apartments. Its depressing seeing these semi detached villages with next to no social housing and ludicrous prices.

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Does Britain not typically have smaller houses than elsewhere?

But looking at Scotland the number of dwellings has risen roughly inline with the number of households in the last 20 years so you could argue that the supply has kept up with the demand.

Yet prices have increased substantially. So it could be argued that actually the supply side is the least of the factors and it has been other influences that have caused the increase.

Of course the mix of households and the type of supply etc. need to be factored in but ultimately my point is that largely focussing on new build numbers is not really the correct way to go about solving the issue.

It would be substantially better to ensure the myriad of other factors get equal weighting in the discussion.

I can agree tho that empty homes (3% in Scotland) and even second homes (1% in Scotland) are not the problem or the solution at a macro level.

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Originally Posted by RyeSloan

Does Britain not typically have smaller houses than elsewhere?

But looking at Scotland the number of dwellings has risen roughly inline with the number of households in the last 20 years so you could argue that the supply has kept up with the demand.

Yet prices have increased substantially. So it could be argued that actually the supply side is the least of the factors and it has been other influences that have caused the increase.

Of course the mix of households and the type of supply etc. need to be factored in but ultimately my point is that largely focussing on new build numbers is not really the correct way to go about solving the issue.

It would be substantially better to ensure the myriad of other factors get equal weighting in the discussion.

I can agree tho that empty homes (3% in Scotland) and even second homes (1% in Scotland) are not the problem or the solution at a macro level.

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But we can't fix the biggest problems easily. Global pandemic and war caused our inflation. A war in the middle east won't help gas prices. What we can fix and easily is building houses which will of course ease prices. Fact is we need to build anyway net migration will decrease stock and raise prices further

A John Burn Murdoch article has been up previously on the subject, really good graphs on cities that built huge numbers to lower costs
https://archive.ph/jv1iH

All economists agree supply increase will decrease prices
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-can-uk-policy-makers-make-homes-more-affordable

They won't build enough to change the market though, we need millions. The FT asked 80 economists how much house prices would decrease if we built 300k houses per year for 20 years, the average was a 10% decrease.

They extra could possibly be eaten up by net migration so we see no decrease

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

Also not helping is British people want big houses with gardens whilst in Europe there is much more good quality apartments. Its depressing seeing these semi detached villages with next to no social housing and ludicrous prices.

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I don’t see the issue with people wanting a nice house with a decent garden, we spend most of our lives in the house nowadays so why would you want to be stuck in a tiny apartment.

Maybe if I lived in a warmer part of Europe where I could spend a large proportion of the day outside I’d be happy with an apartment but not in this country!

I probably now live in one of these depressing semi detached villages as you call them and I’ve never been happier.

The government or councils should be building social housing rather than forcing developers to stick a few token homes at the front of their developments.

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

It's definitely not only decided by building more many things change the market, as i saidthe biggest factor just now is inflation. The list of events you put up were major events that changed prices. But more houses obviously help lower prices.

Also not helping is British people want big houses with gardens whilst in Europe there is much more good quality apartments. Its depressing seeing these semi detached villages with next to no social housing and ludicrous prices.

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British houses are some of the smallest in Europe?

https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house/


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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

British houses are some of the smallest in Europe?

https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house/


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We want big detached houses but what we get is big estates with tiny houses and nothing else in them. I didn't realise how small our detached houses were. 20% of us live in apartments in the UK, Germany is 60% and 50% in cold sweeden live in apartments but they have a better level of housing satisfaction when surveyed.

Low density housing means huge sprawls that's worse for the environment and also leads to you needing a car.

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

We want big detached houses but what we get is big estates with tiny houses and nothing else in them. I didn't realise how small our detached houses were. 20% of us live in apartments in the UK, Germany is 60% and 50% in cold sweeden live in apartments but they have a better level of housing satisfaction when surveyed.

Low density housing means huge sprawls that's worse for the environment and also leads to you needing a car.

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I agree. Modern tenements is the way to go for city living but the quality and size needs to improve.


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Originally Posted by hibee

I don’t see the issue with people wanting a nice house with a decent garden, we spend most of our lives in the house nowadays so why would you want to be stuck in a tiny apartment.

Maybe if I lived in a warmer part of Europe where I could spend a large proportion of the day outside I’d be happy with an apartment but not in this country!

I probably now live in one of these depressing semi detached villages as you call them and I’ve never been happier.

The government or councils should be building social housing rather than forcing developers to stick a few token homes at the front of their developments.

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:agree:

Space, inside and out, is certainly my preference.

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Originally Posted by greenginger

Often developments are held up waiting for power , drainage being supplied to sites.
or schools, medical etc services being made available.

It’s not always the developers who delay developments

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https://www.springfield.co.uk/homes-for-sale/3-perth

This is a totally new village of 3,500 houses, the school was built before anything else and include shops offices doctor surgery. That's what every decent development should be like.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...iness-67305146
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...de0b60fb15.png

Well who could have predicted that?
Article is worth a read.


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I got planning over a year ago for a site and I’m still getting paperwork and stuff done before I can build.

I’d build tomorrow but it’s a bit of a minefield

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Originally Posted by Moulin Yarns

https://www.springfield.co.uk/homes-for-sale/3-perth

This is a totally new village of 3,500 houses, the school was built before anything else and include shops offices doctor surgery. That's what every decent development should be like.

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And a new Primary School in the pipeline 😉

Don’t get me started on the developers and the road to the Cross Tay Link Road though 🙄

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Originally Posted by StevieC

And a new Primary School in the pipeline 😉

Don’t get me started on the developers and the road to the Cross Tay Link Road though 🙄

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As I understand it the CTLR is to reduce congestion and improve air quality in Bridgend. I thought Springfield were decent developers, fairly good environmentally.

https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/17...dxJXScFNwz8V4A

Not housing but principle is the same.


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