Since the Tories came in , rough sleepers on the streets has doubled

[Feedback]

We had a monster thread a few years ago on the Right To Buy and how it reduced access to housing for the worst off and crippled Council housing budgets whilst giving a huge subsidy to the best off tenants. Feedback was all over it and we must have covered every myth and fact possible. This one is just like Groundhog Day.

I remember the thread. It's the same as this - you dress up your opinion as fact.

I asked the question many times previously and it was never answered. How does changing the legal title owner of a property impact the overall requirement for housing?

The issue appears to be not the fact the houses were sold off (as this makes no change to overall supply or demand), but the fact promises were made to restock social housing and these werent always kept.

[Eric Cartman]

I remember the thread. It's the same as this - you dress up your opinion as fact.

I asked the question many times previously and it was never answered. How does changing the legal title owner of a property impact the overall requirement for housing?

The issue appears to be not the fact the houses were sold off (as this makes no change to overall supply or demand), but the fact promises were made to restock social housing and these werent always kept.

It changed the way people viewed housing.

I really like the idea of these schemes where the value of the property is forever linked to the average wage of the local area. Should allow people to live in a nice house/flat but doesn't screw the next generation over and crucially allows people to live and work in roughly the same place.

[Nick]

It changed the way people viewed housing.

I really like the idea of these schemes where the value of the property is forever linked to the average wage of the local area. Should allow people to live in a nice house/flat but doesn't screw the next generation over and crucially allows people to live and work in roughly the same place.

It matters not if a house is built in the north of Blaenau Gwent or in Cyncoed, the cost of building the house will be exactly the same. The land value will be different, yes, but not the build cost.

[Eric Cartman]

It matters not if a house is built in the north of Blaenau Gwent or in Cyncoed, the cost of building the house will be exactly the same. The land value will be different, yes, but not the build cost.

What is your point?

I am referring to schemes which sell a portion of a development at market value and a portion at an 'affordable' value linked to the local average wage - the one I saw coverage of was in London.

[jon1959]

I remember the thread. It's the same as this - you dress up your opinion as fact.

I asked the question many times previously and it was never answered. How does changing the legal title owner of a property impact the overall requirement for housing?

The issue appears to be not the fact the houses were sold off (as this makes no change to overall supply or demand), but the fact promises were made to restock social housing and these werent always kept.

I'm not going to re-run that old thread, but just for old times' sake:

I have given opinions and facts in the previous debate about Right To Buy. You have done the same. But in my opinion my facts are more relevant and my opinions are based on decades of experience of housing management, finance and attempts to improve and expand social housing stock in Sheffield. The issues are not much different anywhere else in the country - even where councils have sold or transferred most or all their stock to housing associations. It just makes it more difficult to meet housing need when there is no council housing left.

You asked a question in the past and it was answered. Many times. You just didn't like the answer. When a council home is sold under the Right To Buy a number of things follow. A rental stream to the council (for repairs, improvements and services) stops and is replaced by a massively discounted capital receipt that has restrictions on its future use applied. RTB disproportionately takes away the better homes which can no longer be relet when the current tenant leaves (if no succession or assignment), and leads to ghettoisation of tenants and remaining council homes. As RTB eats into the stock it reduces economies of scale for the council and makes it more expensive to manage and maintain what is left. It is a process that helps to make council homes a tenure of last resort rather than a tenure of choice as they were in the post-war decades up to the 1980s. You always come back with a simplistic numbers game that ignores the complexities of housing finance or the dynamics of housing supply and demand.

The failure to meet promises to replace RTB homes on a one-for-one basis is a major issue - but not the only one. The government has basically told councils they should do so but without the resources to make it happen. They have at least made it possible for councils to build again when the Self Financing Housing Revenue Account was introduced in 2010 in place of the previous subsidy system (where new build would have been penalised by central government reducing the annual settlement) - but councils still face tenants buying new-built homes under the RTB with subsidy at less than cost, and leaving the council with 60 years of capital repayments and no income! That is the biggest disincentive to building new homes and won't go away unless the RTB is abolished. They have also left in place the crazy requirement that any high value council homes sold will have the capital receipt ring-fenced, mostly to subsidise discounts for housing association RTB:

https://www.ft.com/content/47185f42-...e-8a339b6f2164

There is a government fetish for owner occupation that has the effect of crippling social (especially council) housing.