Meeting affordable housing quotas, as long as it doesn't reduce your profits

[Odds]

The proportion of social renters has fallen from a high of 29% in 1981 to less than half that today, while numbers in private renting have more than doubled. Many are forced to pay exorbitant rents for appalling and overcrowded conditions in a largely unregulated market. Even with a programme of mass housebuilding and fall in house prices, many would not be able to afford home ownership.

Yet, it need not be this way. In Vienna, the majority of the city’s population live in high-quality subsidised housing. It is a vision that Bevan would have recognised, in which nurses, teachers, office cleaners and factory workers all live in the same street, or block.

The city spends more than €570m (£502m) a year on its housing, including building new homes, paid for largely with a 1% levy on the salaries of every Viennese resident. Elements of the model have been adopted by many other European cities, from Barcelona to Helsinki.

What good housing requires, as Vienna shows, is political vision and will. The real question is not: why shouldn’t working-class people own their own homes? It should rather be: why should we not all have proper, decent housing? That costs money, and higher taxation. But it is not nearly as utopian as many imagine.

Kenan Malik@the Grundiana

Would anyone in a major UK city consider paying a 1% levy towards an affordable housing scheme?

 

[denso13]

Manchester

Surely you mean Mancunium?

 

[nwgs]

Surely you mean Mancunium?

Taking one word out of a sentence or paragraph is trash.

It happens so much in the GD. That’s proper trolling.

 

[denso13]

Taking one word out of a sentence or paragraph is trash.

Yea, kinda my point, hope we'll get through to @andy11

 

[blup]

It is a vision that Bevan would have recognised, in which nurses, teachers, office cleaners and factory workers all live in the same street, or block.

Agreed, Bevan would have been horrified at charging nurses to park because some highly paid firm of accountants has come up with the idea as part of their no options are out, blue sky, out of the box thinking.

Blup

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Agreed, Bevan would have been horrified at charging nurses to park because some highly paid firm of accountants has come up with the idea as part of their no options are out, blue sky, out of the box thinking.

Blup

Charging for parking for nurses just means they need more wages to pay for it, so who benefits. Not the average person or nurse

 

[ellal]

They are only affordable if earnings match. How many people with their own house(s) in here could afford to buy their 1st house now.

Exactly!

And it's something that the 'I'm alright jack' geriatric mob are happy to ignore...

I wonder if they even care about their children and grandchildren?

 

[ellal]

I don't expect anyone to fund my pension other than myself.

So are you going to refuse to take the state pension?

After all, you were paying in to the fund so those of generations older than you benefited...

And likewise the generations following you pay for your state pension...

Do you not understand that's how the system works?

 

[Dork Lard]

I've just looked on Rightmove. The nearest 'affordable' house to t'village is a 3 bed terrace for £110k. You can find similar down to £80k but they need lots of work.

On the basis that you can get a mortgage for 4x income with a 10% deposit, then this is easily affordable to a young working couple.

Now, somebody please explain to me why they don't . . . . .

 

[carmanmemoranda]

I've just looked on Rightmove. The nearest 'affordable' house to t'village is a 3 bed terrace for £110k. You can find similar down to £80k but they need lots of work.

On the basis that you can get a mortgage for 4x income with a 10% deposit, then this is easily affordable to a young working couple.

Now, somebody please explain to me why they don't . . . . .

Cos that's obviously in the middle of nowhere

 

[Ihavenojob]

I've just looked on Rightmove. The nearest 'affordable' house to t'village is a 3 bed terrace for £110k. You can find similar down to £80k but they need lots of work.

On the basis that you can get a mortgage for 4x income with a 10% deposit, then this is easily affordable to a young working couple.

Now, somebody please explain to me why they don't . . . . .

My son is looking at getting on the property ladder. Locally £240k will maybe get a studio flat. Some have had prices lowered. Looked at a couple, most are empty, buy to lets that the landlords have had enough of.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

I don't expect anyone to fund my pension other than myself.

In which case, you must be well off enough to not need a pension. If you are going to need a pension and not just your savings then you need others to put in the pot for you too

Wouldn't it be good if every person was able to earn enough to be able to finance their own old age. What I would call a True Living Wage

 

[carmanmemoranda]

My son is looking at getting on the property ladder. Locally £240k will maybe get a studio flat. Some have had prices lowered. Looked at a couple, most are empty, buy to lets that the landlords have had enough.

I think anywhere further south than Derby area will need £150k for anything very basic, rising up to double the closer to London you get.

£250k buys very little within a big radius of London and its surrounding areas.

An £80k house on the wages paid in that area is probably just as unaffordable

 

[Ihavenojob]

Duplicate

 

[Brigadier]

I don't expect anyone to fund my pension other than myself

What about the hospital you were born in.
The school you went to.
The roads you drive on.

Etc etc