Ed's rent controls idea

Stretch said:
The economic problem is "unlimited wants". People's desire for housing is limitless.

I'd have a house in every city if they were free.

The thing that prevents this is money. Wealth increases, prices go up.

The same mount of housing exists as it did 40 years ago. In fact, there's significantly more. Yet their's a housing crisis.

Why?
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You're ignoring the cost and availability of credit, which is far more lax than it was even as close as 15 years ago.
 
MatteH Oxford said:
You're ignoring the cost and availability of credit, which is far more lax than it was even as close as 15 years ago.
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I'm not ignoring this, it's exactly my point. Unaffordability for some is an inevitable outcome in the housing market. It's bad for people at the bottom.

However much of the housing crisis isn't a case of people not having a roof over their head. It's not having the roof they want, where they want it.

This is also unfortunate, by it doesn't warrant government intervention like rent control.

This problem will never be eliminated, because people always want a bigger better house.

Glaucus said:
Oh god really, have you thought about this.

No you wouldn't. Do you know how much a house costs to jeep up. even if they were free, you couldn't afford. Not that they would be free, and mortgagee could become harder to get like they were before.

So just lol. Demand is in no way limitless.


Population has increased faster than property building. As well as more single occupancy.


So yeah just an utter rubbish opinion.
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The world will run out of terra firma before we've exhausted the human races' desire for housing.
 
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People's demand for housing used to be curbed by having to save up for a deposit & not being lent such large multiples of their salary. The difference today is that people on good wages are at the limits of what they can afford to borrow due to the enormous cost of housing relative to earnings - which is caused by very low borrowing rates and the excessive amount that lenders will advance like 4x joint wages (or even more than that sometimes).

I had to have a 10% deposit and the most the bank would lend me was 4 times my own income, not joint income i.e. with a partner. Shock horror people had to save and this meant lower prices and better affordability!
 
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My own thoughts on rent, having been lucky enough to escape it's clutches 6 months ago, is this:

Mortgages specifically for 'buy to let' are offered but only for, say 50% of the value of the property (LTV?); these are offered at a fixed monthly cost for the duration of the loan - this way, a land lord's mortgage payment will be lower and unchanged... so the rent charged should be lower.

By having only small mortgages offered, it may also help to cut down on the seemingly ever growing trend of your average Joe becoming a 'property developer' with a 'portfolio' - as they will need to provide much more capital up front... it may also mean that the cheap houses these types pick up, are left on the market for first time buyers.

This is just my own ideas - I'm no economist, and you can probably pick numerous holes in my idea, but with the current renting costs; it makes it really difficult for people to save a deposit - considering that the required amount is ever growing too.
 
It won't work, and RICS have already shot down ed's claims about their view on the matter.

Unfortunately idiot socialists and idiot voters with an entitlement complex fail to understand simple supply and demand economics...
 
It's really just a simple case of supply and demand. Demand is high, supply is low. Too many people, not enough houses. Of course people are going to exploit the market, landlords and homeowners alike. You can't blame them. As long as there are people willing and able to pay these increased/obsurd prices then there's not a lot that can be done.

There are (obviously) two solutions, less people or more houses. Given that space is at a premium in the south east the only alternative is that everyone who lives in an even numbered house should seppuku. Oh and Cavallino. ;)

In all seriousness, a bit of both needs to happen.
 
bloodiedathame said:
It's really just a simple case of supply and demand. Demand is high, supply is low. Too many people, not enough houses. Of course people are going to exploit the market, landlords and homeowners alike. You can't blame them. As long as there are people willing and able to pay these increased/obsurd prices then there's not a lot that can be done.

There are (obviously) two solutions, less people or more houses. Given that space is at a premium in the south east the only alternative is that everyone who lives in an even numbered house should seppuku. Oh and Cavallino. ;)

In all seriousness, a bit of both needs to happen.
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I actually agree with this.
 
Stretch said:
The world will run out of terra firma before we've exhausted the human races' desire for housing.
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What utter rubbish.

All we need to do is go back to 1960-1975 building levels, which is about 275k new homes a year, it currently stands at about 105k homes a year.
And they need to be far cheaper than those 105k houses we are currently building. It's estimated we need around 250k houses built a year, we're doing under half that level.

2010-2013 was the lowest building rate since ww2. And looks set to continue.
 
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delta0 said:
This will result in having to pay huge amounts of rent up front.
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Basically this.

Potentially have a tenant stuck in for 3 years and not allowed to put the rent up by more than x% in that time? The obvious answer is to start the rent at an elevated level...
 
They need to start building social housing for the normal working class. Lots of housing associations in my area building new houses/apartments etc but they are only letting them out to over 55s.

I'm not sure if it is because there are a lot of over 55s struggling to find somewhere to live, or if it is just the housing associations going for an easy ride. E.g. if they put pensioners in they will have less problems from the tenants.

Cynical me.
 
All this means is that big developer and management companies are going to be making "political donations" and lobbying now to extort money from tenants.

They need to stop building new builds until they can stop developers ripping people off and improve the quality. They usually charge top whack for the houses despite the areas inevitably turning rough due to the fact anyone can buy there with no deposit on a high interest mortgage.
And the houses are just awful - low quality built by unskilled labour. They'll all be falling to bits in 30 years.
 
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The housing market needs to be left to come to a natural conclusion, artificially supporting house prices needs to end.

The problem is very simple, it is supply and demand. The stupid Tory Help to Buy scheme also needs to be binned ASAP.
 
The devil is in the details.

I support rent controls in principle, and the wider range of rental reforms to increase stability for renters, however poorly implemented rent control schemes have a pretty poor record and while rent controls are useful they need to be accompanied by wider housing policies to address supply problems. It's a pity Labour aren't planning on getting back into the state housing game. The retreat of the state from the housing sector has been a disaster for this country.
 
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