Enfield housing experiment

[s1962a]

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/sep/01/enfi...

[Countdown]

Right to Buy - what a fantastic idea

[s1962a]

I had to move out to a another area as I couldn't afford to buy where I grew up. Just because you live in an area and your kids go to school there doesn't mean that society owes you a new place in the exact same area. I am sure the amount of rent the homeless people could afford could get them quite a nice place in towns other than London.

[menousername]

s1962a said:

I had to move out to a another area as I couldn't afford to buy where I grew up. Just because you live in an area and your kids go to school there doesn't mean that society owes you a new place in the exact same area. I am sure the amount of rent the homeless people could afford could get them quite a nice place in towns other than London.

with respect, its not that simple

[JagLover]

menousername said:

s1962a said:

I had to move out to a another area as I couldn't afford to buy where I grew up. Just because you live in an area and your kids go to school there doesn't mean that society owes you a new place in the exact same area. I am sure the amount of rent the homeless people could afford could get them quite a nice place in towns other than London.

with respect, its not that simple

Continuing with the policies we have now central London will become an enclave of only the Rich and the poor(in receipt of housing benefit). Those in the middle have to commute in from ever greater distances and will question why their taxes are being used to pay for people to live in areas they themselves could not afford to live.

[randlemarcus]

Countdown said:

Right to Buy - what a fantastic idea

Right to Buy - brilliant idea that has worked very well.

Blocking the build of replacement homes, very bad idea, and not really blamable on any particular flavour of tie. Stupid policy, but equally stupid idea not to reverse it on change of Idiots in Charge.

[menousername]

JagLover said:

Continuing with the policies we have now central London will become an enclave of only the Rich and the poor(in receipt of housing benefit). Those in the middle have to commute in from ever greater distances and will question why their taxes are being used to pay for people to live in areas they themselves could not afford to live.

but those are the wrong questions... or perhaps the right questions directed at the wrong persons

lets not let this descend into a poor-bashing thread

[TwigtheWonderkid]

randlemarcus said:

Countdown said:

Right to Buy - what a fantastic idea

Right to Buy - brilliant idea that has worked very well.

Why was it a good idea to allow private (and often feckless) individuals to buy publicly owned assets at a 75% discount?

[s1962a]

menousername said:

s1962a said:

I had to move out to a another area as I couldn't afford to buy where I grew up. Just because you live in an area and your kids go to school there doesn't mean that society owes you a new place in the exact same area. I am sure the amount of rent the homeless people could afford could get them quite a nice place in towns other than London.

with respect, its not that simple

Why is it not that simple? I appreciate people have friends/families/schools in local areas, but if they really cannot afford to live in that area, even with the benefits the govt provides, then surely they need to move to an area they can afford?

[randlemarcus]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Why was it a good idea to allow private (and often feckless) individuals to buy publicly owned assets at a 75% discount?

Because it transferred ownership of that asset to the individual, increasing their sense of community, rewarding them for the decades of rent they had paid, and shifted liability for that asset away from the local authority. The vagaries of the housing market are what they are, the fundaments of the policy are/were sound. It's just we failed to replace with new stock using that money. There is a place for social housing in a civilised society - but it's not a multi-generational one.

[V8 Fettler]

Build large tower block estates for social housing, it's the only answer.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

randlemarcus said:

rewarding them for the decades of rent they had paid,

Many round our way were snapped up by single mums with loans from their parents, and sold on 3 yrs later for a huge profit.

A bloke I know, had 4 kids with his g/f by the time he was 22, in a 4 bed council house in a nice London suburb, bought for a pittance and sold for £750K about 5 yrs later. Meanwhile me and the wife struggled to pay a mortgage and didn't have kids for years as we couldn't afford it.

You're living in Thatcher dreamland. What she might have intended was one thing, but it was the start of the society that rewards fecklessness and makes people think they are entitled to something for nothing.

[menousername]

JagLover said:

Continuing with the policies we have now central London will become an enclave of only the Rich and the poor(in receipt of housing benefit). Those in the middle have to commute in from ever greater distances and will question why their taxes are being used to pay for people to live in areas they themselves could not afford to live.

but those are the wrong questions... or perhaps the right questions directed at the wrong persons

lets not let this descend into a poor-bashing thread

[geeks]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Many round our way were snapped up by single mums with loans from their parents, and sold on 3 yrs later for a huge profit.

A bloke I know, had 4 kids with his g/f by the time he was 22, in a 4 bed council house in a nice London suburb, bought for a pittance and sold for £750K about 5 yrs later. Meanwhile me and the wife struggled to pay a mortgage and didn't have kids for years as we couldn't afford it.

You're living in Thatcher dreamland. What she might have intended was one thing, but it was the start of the society that rewards fecklessness and makes people think they are entitled to something for nothing.

So anyone who does exercise the right to buy is a feckless benefit scumbag? Riiiiight!

[randlemarcus]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Many round our way were snapped up by single mums with loans from their parents, and sold on 3 yrs later for a huge profit.

A bloke I know, had 4 kids with his g/f by the time he was 22, in a 4 bed council house in a nice London suburb, bought for a pittance and sold for £750K about 5 yrs later. Meanwhile me and the wife struggled to pay a mortgage and didn't have kids for years as we couldn't afford it.

You're living in Thatcher dreamland. What she might have intended was one thing, but it was the start of the society that rewards fecklessness and makes people think they are entitled to something for nothing.

Lucky single mums, huh?

I'm going from memory and from google searches, but the maximum discount was 60% until last year, wasn't it, and that was 35% after five years, then 1% for each year after that, so this bloke of yours would have got about 40% off.

So what that house prices have risen, and they have made out? It's not like the council would have made money selling it from under them, is it? What's the feckless bloke doing now?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

geeks said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Many round our way were snapped up by single mums with loans from their parents, and sold on 3 yrs later for a huge profit.

A bloke I know, had 4 kids with his g/f by the time he was 22, in a 4 bed council house in a nice London suburb, bought for a pittance and sold for £750K about 5 yrs later. Meanwhile me and the wife struggled to pay a mortgage and didn't have kids for years as we couldn't afford it.

You're living in Thatcher dreamland. What she might have intended was one thing, but it was the start of the society that rewards fecklessness and makes people think they are entitled to something for nothing.

So anyone who does exercise the right to buy is a feckless benefit scumbag? Riiiiight!

Not all, but plenty. And why should anyone "get a reward" for years of renting. If you owned a rental property, would you flog it to a long term tenant at a huge discount, as a reward? If you wouldn't do it for your own property, why should a council do it on houses that belong to all of us?

[randlemarcus]

Except they don't "belong to all of us", except in an airy fairy way. They belong to the Council, who will use those resources for the benefit of the Council, not "all of us". RTB significantly improved some areas in terms of upkeep, ASB and community cohesion. Councils having huge housing stocks doesn't benefit anybody, including the "all of us" who pay for the tenants to have new double glazing and roofing every decade.

[JezzaV8]

randlemarcus said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Why was it a good idea to allow private (and often feckless) individuals to buy publicly owned assets at a 75% discount?

Because it transferred ownership of that asset to the individual, increasing their sense of community, rewarding them for the decades of rent they had paid, and shifted liability for that asset away from the local authority. The vagaries of the housing market are what they are, the fundaments of the policy are/were sound. It's just we failed to replace with new stock using that money. There is a place for social housing in a civilised society - but it's not a multi-generational one.

Or alternatively working as an estate agent in Islington as I did, seeing buyers who had hardly worked a day in their lazy lives buy into instant equity and fly past me on the property ladder, despite the fact I had saved and worked my a$$ off for 10 years.

Edited by JezzaV8 on Tuesday 2nd September 16:16

[TwigtheWonderkid]

JezzaV8 said:

Or alternatively working as an estate agent in Islington as I did, seeing buyers who had hardly worked a day in their lazy lives lives buy into instant equity and fly past me on the property ladder, despite the fact I had worked my a$$ off for 10 years.

Nail / head.

[randlemarcus]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

JezzaV8 said:

Or alternatively working as an estate agent in Islington as I did, seeing buyers who had hardly worked a day in their lazy lives lives buy into instant equity and fly past me on the property ladder, despite the fact I had worked my a$$ off for 10 years.

Nail / head.

Oh, I'm sorry, did someone tell you life was fair? For the record, I have never benefitted from RTB, and though I would rather horrible people didn't do well in life, sometimes they do.