That we don't have a homeless epidemic is kinda missing the point, instead we have people having fewer kids than they'd otherwise wish to have, people living with their parents for longer because they can't afford to move out or indeed couples stuck in flatshares etc..
Homelessness varies with location. The national average is approx 1 in 200 homeless (classed as in temporary accommodation or rough sleeping but not including sofa surfing/ sleeping in cars and other non-reported homelessness)
Homeless rates vary greatly with location though. In the worst affected boroughs they are up to 1 in 4 (25%) eg in Newham, London.
In the 2018 figures (latest published) 320k homeless in Britain, 0.5% of the population. Over half of which (approx 170k) are in London. Source: https://england.shelter.org.uk/prof...h/policy_library/homelessness_in_england_2021 (follow the links)
320k people is more than the entirety of Newcastle. It's a city the size of Coventry/Leicester/Nottingham/Cardiff (according to wikipedia). Is that acceptable in a supposedly first world G7 country?
The cost of living crisis and covid layoffs are expected to greatly increase that ratio once new data is published.
Last edited:
No, that would be dumb, there is a shortage of rental accommodation already, we don't need caps on it. There is a shortage of supply in general.
Not particularly relevant tbh... the other poster was pointing out that we don't have a homeless epidemic as a reason why there isn't a lack of supply, but that's not really a good argument as already pointed out. That some people are in temporary accommodation at some point in time is to be expected. Rough sleeping on the other hand has much less to do with this topic and is more relevant to things like drug addiction and mental health.
The problem, again, is the lack of supply.
Last edited:
People were talking about a homeless crisis. Stats on it are entirely relevant so we can have factual discussion based on actual data. I'm not sure why you would deem that irrelevant?
People need somewhere to live. If a person can afford to buy and live in one property their needs are met. They should leave other properties for others to buy. If those other people cannot afford to buy and lots of properties are not selling as a result then either the prices drop so they can afford to buy or the council/gov can step in and help provide sufficient rental properties, or assisted buy schemes. That should be all the market needs. Private landlords swooping in to profit from the situation does not help. It exarcebates and increases the cost of living, pushing up property prices, and rent prices since they want to profit from the endeavour. I saw an interesting clip of someone debating just this in the Irish Parliament:
And how does that help prospective buyers that are now priced out of their local market?
... in the buyers market.
That's a great speech. Well said that man.
@dowie won't watch it, but here's a good takeaway; In the first quarter of 2022, out of 1,151 new-builds sold in Dublin - only 217 were bought by FTBs. 69% were bought by non-household purchasers i.e. investers, funds and landlords.
Well, I already explained why, if you want a factual discussion about "a homeless crisis" then why not start a thread on it?
So who provides private rentals?
Who said it does? How does getting rid of landlords help people who want to rent?
The issue, again, is the lack of supply, not playing musical chairs with the existing property market and blaming some other segment of it with differing needs. It doesn't need to be such a limited resource in the first place!
I said it does. Because there's a very limited number of people who actually want to rent anyway. So taking away their prospective purchases by pumping up the prices via BTL investment does take away the supply of "buy-able" property, especially when you're talking about FTBs.
You're contradicting yourself. I'm not talking about playing musical chairs with existing property, I'm pointing out that simply "increasing supply" of housing by building more will do absolutely nothing to help ease the housing crisis - because particularly around big cities, they will all get snapped up by landlords. Why don't you understand that?
As my post, nobody provides private rentals. They shouldn't be needed. That's the point. If you watched the video he argues it quite eloquently in more detail.
Again, 12% of purchases last year... and people still need places to rent too.
Because you just made it up, it's not true.
Lots of people provide rentals and they are needed, you're just being absurd tbh.
Well you may think it absurd but this is a real debate put forward in the Irish parliament. I'm sorry if that jars with your worldview but you can't dismiss it as absurd.
He didn't. Again, the stats, actual stats, given in the video I linked before, from the Irish Parliament, give examples of why what he's saying is correct.
Last edited:
Nope, this is a claim you made: "nobody provides private rentals. They shouldn't be needed."
That's clearly false, how would you cater to say a young professional who wants to move to London and live in a flatshare with friends? How would you cater to an Aussie backpacker who wants to live in the UK for a year?
No, they don't, his claim was:
"simply "increasing supply" of housing by building more will do absolutely nothing to help ease the housing crisis - because particularly around big cities, they will all get snapped up by landlords"
The link from the Irish parliament does not show that, the claim there was 69% in the first quarter of 2022 in Dublin, not "all". You're missing some key context here too in that Dublin has a housing crisis, there aren't enough homes to rent so no wonder there is a big demand by landlords... again a supply issue!
Young people in Ireland face 'terrifying' rent crisis due to chronic housing shortage
There were just 716 homes available to rent on 1 August in Ireland, which has a population of 5.1 million people, as the cost of rented accommodation soars 12.6% compared to last year.
news.sky.com
Also missing the point somewhat in that all of this doesn't exist in isolation... whether in some particular area you add/build more properties that are owned by councils, private landlords or owner occupiers you're still adding more properties to the total supply (the main issue here!) and again 12% of property sales were to BTL investors last year in the UK, the vast majority were not.
Last edited:
interesting. You got a source for that 12% stat there?
People needing to rent would be catered for by the means I described in my post. Private rental doesn't feature in that model. Social renting and assisted buying do. Your question is already answered.
Was already posted in the thread:
Landlords made 12% of house purchases in 2022 as homeowners cooled off
Buy-to-let investors take advantage of cooling owner-occupier market to snap up more properties, as rents also rise.
Nope... not everyone wants to buy. How does social renting solve it? Every local authority in London has a huge waiting list so where does, say an Aussie backpacker go to get a flat to rent?
How about an American banker being sent to London for 2 years? Where does he live with his family? You think he'd like to be chucked into a random council house?
Ditto to say some young professionals moving down to London after uni... how do you allocate housing to them, and which borough do they live in?
Last edited:
Man of Honour
Why do people think everyone wants to buy? Such a British obsession.
The model, being put forward for debate in the Irish Parliament, is that the rental amount any property can be rented for is set by the government and derived by what people can actually fairly pay. It is not left to market forces of how much can a landlord get away with. Where that means private smallscale landlords feel it is no longer profitable the state buys the property and puts into it social housing stock. Larger scale landlords are compulsariorly taken into public ownership. Someone wanting to rent either rents social housing or where private landlords want to be part of the system, they might still be around, but the rent would be the same either way. Most BTL landlords doing it for investment and profit would probably leave though as they would likely not make enough money out of the proposed system. Someone wanting to rent can still do so. They just don't get increasingly exploited like the current system encourages.Was already posted in the thread:
Landlords made 12% of house purchases in 2022 as homeowners cooled off
Buy-to-let investors take advantage of cooling owner-occupier market to snap up more properties, as rents also rise.www.thisismoney.co.uk
Nope... not everyone wants to buy. How does social renting solve it? Every local authority in London has a huge waiting list so where does, say an Aussie Banker get a flat to rent from?
How about an American banker being sent to London for 2 years? Where does he live with his family? You think he'd like to be chucked into a random council house?
Ditto to say some young professionals moving down to London after uni... how do you allocate housing to them, and which borough do they live in?
You're talking about rent control and then conflating it with social housing and then throwing in some nonsense about the compulsory purchase of "larger scale landlords".
The reason why they're talking about rent control is the lack of supply, that just addresses the symptoms not the underlying issue... why not address the underlying supply issue?
It doesn't answer the questions I posed to you either... other than basically those people are potentially screwed and so can't rent anywhere.
Cite?
Cite?
I presume you're talking about private landlords, but they'll just be replaced by corporate landlords. That's the efficient way to do it anyway since a company can offset mortgage repayments against income, unlike private landlords. Setting up a company isn't exactly difficult or expensive.
If it's not affordable then even landlords won't buy it: they need to have tenants.