Sunak (General U.K. is Jaded thread)

Along_the_Wire

Hursty yeah, different help to buy scheme.

-si-

Hursty, the point of these schemes are to allow people to buy a house who can afford it but possibly due to being stuck in a rental property, cannot save a deposit for example. These shared ownership type schemes do an awful lot of good by helping people onto the property ladder. I am not sure where your constant tin foil theories re everything financial come from?

Hursty

-si- Not doubting the benefits of the scheme Si, just delving into the details and wondering whether anyone knows someone who is suffering due to the interest hikes post 6 years.

Regarding fueling the housing market bubble, I stand by that comment because its ironically harming people they want to help, as not only are they subject to what was said above, I’m fairly sure users of the scheme could only choose from high interest mortgage rates due to the ‘risk’ they posed.

Coupled with the fact that its buoying the overinflated prices with new buyers, when theoretically prices need to come down so first time buyers can enter the market.

Net result being less money in the pockets of people who need it.

-si-

Hursty Regarding fueling the housing market bubble, I stand by that comment because its ironically harming people they want to help, as not only are they subject to what was said above, I’m fairly sure users of the scheme could only choose from high interest mortgage rates due to the ‘risk’ they posed.

Coupled with the fact that its buoying the overinflated prices with new buyers, when theoretically prices need to come down so first time buyers can enter the market.

Can only speak from an informed position on the NI market but any financial articles i read on the UK market as a whole suggest it follows a similar trend. Our main issue is supply and demand, with nowhere near enough stock available so as soon as anything comes on the market there is a biding frenzy. Couple this with cash rich property developers and professional landlords who are snapping up the old entry level priced houses, it means people are forced to buy upwards of what was traditionally a first time buyer home, again meaning increased prices. With a lot of people wanting to move out and rent and with rents also being a shit show nowadays, the likes of the help to buy and other shared ownership schemes can be a life saver for those wanting to get themselves onto the property ladder. It absolutely does not mean people are buying homes they cannot afford.

gcw

I disagree on the fueling a bubble point. Those properties would have been purchased by someone regardless.

I don’t know anyone personally who has been stung on the year 6 point, but I work in housing and know of hundreds of leaseholders who have been caught out by the double digit inflation point. That is the risk you take when you enter into a long term financial arrangement sadly.

Hursty

gcw I’d be interested to hear what your thoughts are on the reasons why property prices have been in this rapid ascendency since circa 2000?

(of course its not all HTB!) ;-)

gcw

A combination of many reasons, but the main one is supply - we are just not building enough houses per annum to meet the demand of a growing population. I think the social housing sector only delivered about 40% of the new dwellings it was asked to build in the past few years - and the reasons for that are due to reduction in govt grant, limits on rent charges and property compliance demands - so we are left with a choice of maintaining the assets we have now or ignoring them and building new assets - which isn’t gonna happen because if you take your eyes off your compliance points, then you get massively fined/lose your job.

Dubman

gcw
Are council rents capped. Only asking as when I worked for a company that had a council maintenance contract they were getting very good prices. A Tradesmen wage have has gone up quite a lot in recent years as anyone would know who’s had any work done in their house.
I would hate to think how much money councils pay on maintenance compared to the rent money they receive.

Hursty

gcw cheers, very interesting, it always seems to me we go the wrong way about house building in the UK compared to europe for example where its more common for the local councils to create a new street with all the services then you employ the local trades people to build them, rather than what we have is huge companies which churn out shit new builds far to small for the average family to increase profits.

gcw

Dubman

The Rent Standard sets out how councils and housing associations should calculate the rents on their properties. You cannot go outside of the Standard.
There are two main tenures – social rent (sometimes known as general needs) and affordable rent.
Social rent is what you would expect ‘council’ houses to be charged. It is calculated using a formula that takes into account the number of bedrooms, the average earnings of that area, and the value of the property as at January 1999. The earnings point is key and means that a 3 bed house in London would not have the same rent as an identical house in say Sunderland – because the earnings in the two areas are different.
On average, social rent is between 35% and 50% of the rent that would be charged on the open market. My mum lives in a 3 bed semi-detached housing association property, with a massive garden. Her rent is £132 per week! All repairs covered under that as well. When she passes on, that house will be given to the next person on the waiting list and the cycle starts again (as it should do).
For info – there are not many social rent properties being built as developers just cant afford it. The numbers don’t stack up and the break even point where the rent exceeds the build price is massively extended. So they steer clear.
Affordable rent is a bit different. You are allowed to charge up to 80% of the open market price for a property – so if a property would get £1,000 rent a month on the open market, you can charge a maximum of £800 (you could charge lower if you want, but no-one ever does). As the market moves up, so does the rent (but you can only revise the rent when someone moves out, you cant just put it up every few months as the market goes up)
For both tenures, the rent standard allows you to increase the rent each year by CPI + 0.5%. However for 2023/24 the government overruled that and limited it to 7% maximum. So we are in a situation where all our costs are going up by CPI (11-13% etc) but our income is restricted to 7% only – so your point about maintenance contracts is relevant. The contractor may have built in a CPI increase to their contract with the council, which the council will need to honour.

Dubman

gcw
My company never actually built any council council houses but just won the maintenance contract.

mono-stereo

When I where a nipper most or all of the rent on my mum’s council house used to be covered by housing benefit.

gcw

mono-stereo it still is. The HB bill is massive. I work for a HA with around 6,000 houses. We get £1m a week in HB! And we are small fry. Largest HA in Britain has 130,000 houses

benson

At risk of sounding like a Tory (but please read on), the benefits bill in this country is massive. But this simplification hides the fact that much of it is in work benefits and is really only there because companies can use the government to support their workforce and pocket the cash instead. It’s a bloody scandal. We need to be paying people a proper living wage and they can then afford to house, feed, heat and enjoy themselves.

Along_the_Wire

benson Sounds more Labour that Bens

Millsy

Laters Raab, you cunt. Oooh you’re hard, karate black belt. Lol.

alistair

Millsy never trust anyone with a throbbing forehead.

Cankles-McJeggings

Millsy

Just another Tory rat getting found out. Pure filth.

Millsy

alistair another dig at Smalls? When will it end?

mono-stereo

lol

whatever

Cankles-McJeggings

Just another Tory rat getting found out. Pure filth.

C’mon, hasn’t Smalls taken enough of a schalackin’?

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