Month: October 2013

28 Oct 2013 Interesting Twitter exchange just now, started by Tom Neumark (see screenshot below), needs more than 140 character response. [Later:  his blog has a longer version and I hadn’t connected it before. ]

The way people relate to housing and to the financial relationships which now govern so much of it is very fragmented: outright owners and established mortgage-payers gaining from price growth; new buyers maybe struggling and very exposed to interest-rate increases, especially if they have high LTV; frustrated would-be-buyers priced out; private tenants suffering under rents which in SE and some other places are extremely high with quality often very poor; social tenants finding their rents being jacked up to “affordable” levels, and in many places subject now to eviction/’decanting’ to make way for private development; homelessness and overcrowding booming; rumours of extensive vacant dwellings in London; loads of under-occupation (see previous post). Continue reading “Housing, a quick note”

13 Oct 2013 This is an argument I keep having with people, so here it is for reference:

There is certainly a lot of under-occupation in the English housing stock: not much in privately-rented units but a lot in the owner-0ccupied and social rented sectors.  This wastes family-sized dwellings occupied by singles and couples who neither need nor want so much space. Continue reading “Better than a bedroom tax”