4 ms·

There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizen

by Jochim 3y ago

There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. The UK experimented with selling off it's social housing in the 70s. It was a colossal failure that has lead to the country having some of the worst housing stock in Europe, with renters paying more for less. Private landlords have been enriched at the expense of the wider society. Without state intervention in housing regulation/supply we'd see shanty towns spring up fairly quickly, followed by violence. Refer to Champlain Towers, Grenfell Tower, or the collapsed luxury apartments in the Turkey earthquake to see what happens when the state does not do enough to ensure builders aren't building death traps.

robertlagrant 3y ago
> There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the demand, or being allowed to match it. Asulym seekers make up a small amount (3%?) of the people who we take in - e.g. in 2022 we took in 606k people, but under 20k of them were asulum seekers. > The UK experimented with selling off it's social housing in the 70s. It was a colossal failure that has lead to the country having some of the worst housing stock in Europe, with renters paying more for less. The same number of people would need housing, regardless of whether the houses were privately owned or state owned. > Without state intervention in housing regulation/supply we'd see shanty towns spring up fairly quickly, followed by violence. Refer to Champlain Towers, Grenfell Tower, or the collapsed luxury apartments in the Turkey earthquake to see what happens when the state does not do enough to ensure builders aren't building death traps. I don't understand this. I didn't say no regulation. But there's a huge gap between that and making it incredibly difficult to build. Citing some basic anti-zero regulation argument in response to what I said is disheartening.
- Jochim 3y ago
  > Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the demand, or being allowed to match it. This does not square with the fact that private builders are leaving nearly half of approved developments unbuilt. It's almost like private builders are incentivised to squeeze the market rather than bring prices down. > The same number of people would need housing, regardless of whether the houses were privately owned or state owned. Publicly owned housing: The state makes an initial capital investment which it recoups through a low monthly rent payment. After 30 years the state only pays maintenance costs for the property, covered by the monthly rent. Any excess rent can be reinvested towards the cost of another unit. Privately rented housing: The state pays market rate rents forever, burning the money. The private landlord pays off the mortgage and gets to pocket more of the money. There's no benefit to the state. It's the same with social care. The government could build social care, instead we're paying up to £50k/week per child[0] towards some cunt's yacht. And it's the same with the NHS. Nurses have a hard time and poor pay and some quit. The government then bring in an agency nurse, paying the agency 2-4x the salary of the NHS nurse that will have to babysit them because they aren't familiar with their ward and refusing to raise the rate of pay for their own nurses. The remaining nurses see this and some more quit, agency work pays more and you get to choose when you work. This spirals into a very avoidable staffing crisis. > I don't understand this. I didn't say no regulation. But there's a huge gap between that and making it incredibly difficult to build. Citing some basic anti-zero regulation argument in response to what I said is disheartening. I didn't claim you were arguing for no regulation, arguing that regulations should be made more lax in the face of those events is what's disheartening. Those disasters occurred because existing regulations were not sufficiently strict/enforced. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/18/english-councils-pay-1m-per-child-for-places-in-private-childrens-homes https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/18/english-coun...
  - disruptalot 3y ago
    You highlight a bunch of examples where government policy/implementation has failed miserably in the backdrop of higher and higher demand from it. I wonder how far this needs to stretch before we realise that the problem isn't that the government doesn't behave correctly, but that the whole idea that a government is a good allocator of capital and resources is flawed.
tsukikage 3y ago
> There's a limited amount of space So build denser, taller housing. We sprawl massively compared to developments on the continent. > a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates If we increase supply, market rates will fall. That's how markets work. Therein lies the real problem, of course: real estate investors with existing holdings don't want the rates to fall, and they have influence over how much new stock gets built. > It was a colossal failure To be clear, the failure was not in the act of selling itself, but in the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock. This is the part that made the housing problem worse instead of better.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock This wouldn't have mattered, I think. The houses were sold at a massive discount, IIRC.
- Jochim 3y ago
  > To be clear, the failure was not in the act of selling itself, but in the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock. This is the part that made the housing problem worse instead of better. The kind of mass sell-off that occurred could only be considered a massive failure. Selling individual properties at market value when the intention is to reinvest that money is clearly without objection. But to this day, the government offers discounts of up to 70% on social housing. It is a direct transfer of public wealth into private ownership and it has invariably led to worse outcomes where it has occurred. Social housing, royal mail, and water infrastructure are the obvious examples but less obviously there's PFIs, energy, and the nhs.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    water companies have build Zero new water reservoirs in the entire 50 years of their existance. In 10 yeats London will start running out of water and we will have to bail them out like we bailed out the banks.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
rcarr 3y ago
> Private landlords have been enriched at the expense of the wider society. We are literally subsidising the least productive "profession" in society, to the tune of billions. It's an absolute joke.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  They aren't being subsidised. They're being paid to rent out their property.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    And what would happen if the government passed a law saying that housing benefit could no longer be paid to private landlords? Looking over the instant wide spread homelessness, you would get a sharp spike in landlords either selling their houses or going bankrupt because their business model is no longer viable. Without that government money, they can’t pay their buy to let mortgages and the whole thing collapses - so they’re essentially getting property for free, paid for by the government, all because they managed to have enough capital to get in on the racket at the ground floor. Not to mention all the other less indirect ways the government passes laws to benefit landlords and property owners at the expense of renters.

by Jochim 3y ago

robertlagrant 3y ago

> There's a limited amount of space and a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates. When the state doesn't build accommodation, citizens end up transferring ludicrous amounts to private landlords to house foster children, asylum seekers, the poor, or the disabled. Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the demand, or being allowed to match it. Asulym seekers make up a small amount (3%?) of the people who we take in - e.g. in 2022 we took in 606k people, but under 20k of them were asulum seekers. > The UK experimented with selling off it's social housing in the 70s. It was a colossal failure that has lead to the country having some of the worst housing stock in Europe, with renters paying more for less. The same number of people would need housing, regardless of whether the houses were privately owned or state owned. > Without state intervention in housing regulation/supply we'd see shanty towns spring up fairly quickly, followed by violence. Refer to Champlain Towers, Grenfell Tower, or the collapsed luxury apartments in the Turkey earthquake to see what happens when the state does not do enough to ensure builders aren't building death traps. I don't understand this. I didn't say no regulation. But there's a huge gap between that and making it incredibly difficult to build. Citing some basic anti-zero regulation argument in response to what I said is disheartening.

Jochim 3y ago
> Space is limited by regulation and zoning. 90% of the UK is rural. Market rates are high because of the supply not matching the demand, or being allowed to match it. This does not square with the fact that private builders are leaving nearly half of approved developments unbuilt. It's almost like private builders are incentivised to squeeze the market rather than bring prices down. > The same number of people would need housing, regardless of whether the houses were privately owned or state owned. Publicly owned housing: The state makes an initial capital investment which it recoups through a low monthly rent payment. After 30 years the state only pays maintenance costs for the property, covered by the monthly rent. Any excess rent can be reinvested towards the cost of another unit. Privately rented housing: The state pays market rate rents forever, burning the money. The private landlord pays off the mortgage and gets to pocket more of the money. There's no benefit to the state. It's the same with social care. The government could build social care, instead we're paying up to £50k/week per child[0] towards some cunt's yacht. And it's the same with the NHS. Nurses have a hard time and poor pay and some quit. The government then bring in an agency nurse, paying the agency 2-4x the salary of the NHS nurse that will have to babysit them because they aren't familiar with their ward and refusing to raise the rate of pay for their own nurses. The remaining nurses see this and some more quit, agency work pays more and you get to choose when you work. This spirals into a very avoidable staffing crisis. > I don't understand this. I didn't say no regulation. But there's a huge gap between that and making it incredibly difficult to build. Citing some basic anti-zero regulation argument in response to what I said is disheartening. I didn't claim you were arguing for no regulation, arguing that regulations should be made more lax in the face of those events is what's disheartening. Those disasters occurred because existing regulations were not sufficiently strict/enforced. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/18/english-councils-pay-1m-per-child-for-places-in-private-childrens-homes https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/18/english-coun...
- disruptalot 3y ago
  You highlight a bunch of examples where government policy/implementation has failed miserably in the backdrop of higher and higher demand from it. I wonder how far this needs to stretch before we realise that the problem isn't that the government doesn't behave correctly, but that the whole idea that a government is a good allocator of capital and resources is flawed.

tsukikage 3y ago

> There's a limited amount of space So build denser, taller housing. We sprawl massively compared to developments on the continent. > a non-negligible portion of society are unable to afford market rates If we increase supply, market rates will fall. That's how markets work. Therein lies the real problem, of course: real estate investors with existing holdings don't want the rates to fall, and they have influence over how much new stock gets built. > It was a colossal failure To be clear, the failure was not in the act of selling itself, but in the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock. This is the part that made the housing problem worse instead of better.

robertlagrant 3y ago
> the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock This wouldn't have mattered, I think. The houses were sold at a massive discount, IIRC.
Jochim 3y ago
> To be clear, the failure was not in the act of selling itself, but in the decision to not reinvest the proceeds into new housing stock. This is the part that made the housing problem worse instead of better. The kind of mass sell-off that occurred could only be considered a massive failure. Selling individual properties at market value when the intention is to reinvest that money is clearly without objection. But to this day, the government offers discounts of up to 70% on social housing. It is a direct transfer of public wealth into private ownership and it has invariably led to worse outcomes where it has occurred. Social housing, royal mail, and water infrastructure are the obvious examples but less obviously there's PFIs, energy, and the nhs.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  water companies have build Zero new water reservoirs in the entire 50 years of their existance. In 10 yeats London will start running out of water and we will have to bail them out like we bailed out the banks.
- robertlagrant 3y ago

rcarr 3y ago

> Private landlords have been enriched at the expense of the wider society. We are literally subsidising the least productive "profession" in society, to the tune of billions. It's an absolute joke.

robertlagrant 3y ago
They aren't being subsidised. They're being paid to rent out their property.
- rcarr 3y ago
  And what would happen if the government passed a law saying that housing benefit could no longer be paid to private landlords? Looking over the instant wide spread homelessness, you would get a sharp spike in landlords either selling their houses or going bankrupt because their business model is no longer viable. Without that government money, they can’t pay their buy to let mortgages and the whole thing collapses - so they’re essentially getting property for free, paid for by the government, all because they managed to have enough capital to get in on the racket at the ground floor. Not to mention all the other less indirect ways the government passes laws to benefit landlords and property owners at the expense of renters.