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Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

architectsjournal.co.uk

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Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#91

Post by wruza »

lores wrote: post #52
wruza wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More grass -> more rabbits -> less grass -> less rabbits -> (loop). You can mix different rabbits in, but the cycle is fundamental.

Humans aren't rabbits. Humans tend to have children in inverse proportion to the amount of grass, poorer people having more children than richer ones. Of course it's not a direct correlation, or a simple one, but the effect is there.

Agreed. What does this tell us in the context of this discussion?

Returning to the initial point, should people just build more houses?

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#92

Post by keybored »

Decommodify owning a home. You’re gonna be fretting about why housing is getting more expensive while fighting a ghost battle against homeowners until you do.[1]

Do-gooder liberals are gonna worry about what policy mistake was made in the last 50 years. No. You have competing interests and the people who own something have the leverage as well as something to lose if too many people get what they already have. What’s difficult to understand?

Don’t try to “grow the middle class”, this selfish NIMBY sociological construction (it’s just gonna compact anyway, and it is). Decommodify having a dang roof over your head.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43726760

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#93

Post by tareqak »

nly wrote: post #6

Over the last 50-70 years the UK made the choice to stop building social housing and to sell off the existing stock with aggressive government subsidies. Complaining now is a bit like complaining there's no milk after you sold the dairy farm to build a casino. I read TFA but I'm not seeing anything but useless outrage that would have been better placed 20-30 years ago I became a first time property owner at 36 and it…

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Mainstream media made fun of China for building “ghost cities” in the middle of nowhere.

Now, those cities are full of people.

“Chinese ghost cities are finally stirring to life”

https://norcalapa.org/2021/09/chinese-ghost-cities-are-final...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-g...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underoccupied_developments_in_...

First Edit: removed unnecessary snark.

Second Edit: Added sources.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#94

Post by skywal_l »

thrance wrote: post #39
oytis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High density is supposed to be good isn't it? And density of European cities is still nowhere near what people have in East Asia

Paris, where I live, is three times as dense as Tokyo... The entire city is mixed-used 6 storey buildings.

It's probably because Paris, officially, is the very small hypercenter of the Parisian metropolitan area. Whereas Tokyo is the actual total metropolis. Just look up the population of both. Paris is 2 millions whereas Tokyo is 14 millions. If you were to consider the whole Paris metropolitan area then the population is 11 millions.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#95

Post by rwmj »

thrance wrote: post #49
graemep wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If houses ever return to good affordability I'm screwed. Which creates a huge pool of people who are opposed to making houses more affordable.

This is the thing I never see addressed. Wouldn't fixing the housing crisis necessarily involve slashing down property values? Which are for a lot of people their only form of savings? Genuine question by the way, I would like an answer.

You're totally right. It would be better for home owners since high houses prices make everything about buying and selling houses more expensive. You can't realise your housing gains except by dying. Or downsizing, but many old people rattle around in 3+ bedroom houses until they die or are forced to go into a retirement home.

It would also involve building more houses, which is bitterly and loudly opposed by a subset of home owners. Home owners are also richer, older, and vote much more than the (generally) poorer, younger renters.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#96

Post by sirwhinesalot »

milesrout wrote: post #61
scotty79 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to refinance every 5 years, because that's the game in the UK, so if rates spike I'm also screwed. Could anyone explain why is that the case? If the mortgage is till 70 then why are you forced to remake the agreement every 5 years? Can't you stick to original one?

A bank would be mental to commit to a fixed interest rate on a mortgage for 30 years. Economic conditions change.

In a lot of countries banks have to do that.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#97

Post by vidarh »

oytis wrote: post #14
whatever1 wrote: post #5

We had a chance to defuse the housing crisis with remote work and we blew it. Opportunities are concentrated and building in concentrated areas is inherently hard. We still don’t know how to scale mega cities fast while still operating them at capacity. So the problem will not go away anytime soon.

High density is supposed to be good isn't it? And density of European cities is still nowhere near what people have in East Asia

Just medium-to-high density by UK standards around existing larger train stations would do an immense amount to alleviate the UK housing crisis.

I used to live on a road with ~660 houses. The road, the houses, and the yards combined took up ca. 40,000 m^2. Near the local well-connected train station, a few new-builds in the 20~ floor range added more homes than that entire road took up in ~2,000 m^2.

On top of that, because of its location, the strain added on transport was far less - most people would be a short walking distance from both shops and commuter trains to the centre.

There are hundreds of major transit hubs like that in the UK where you could easily add do relatively modest hubs of higher-density housing and add a massive amount of capacity.

What's lacking is the political will to solve the massive problem of house owners who have been trained to see rising house prices as financially beneficial to them.

When most of those house owners are in an older demographic more likely to vote, it's a huge challenge to fix.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#98

Post by rwmj »

raffraffraff wrote: post #86
thrance wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I never see addressed. Wouldn't fixing the housing crisis necessarily involve slashing down property values? Which are for a lot of people their only form of savings? Genuine question by the way, I would like an answer.

If you're not planning on selling your house it's future value is irrelevant. All I care about is the purchase price of my "forever home". The only difference it makes it that if your lender gives more favourable interest rates when your loan to value ratio improves. So if you purchase a house and the price doubles, your LTV is already 50%. Conversely if it drops after you paid off half the mortgage, your LTV might b…

I'm not sure if the thing about LTV is true considering the whole picture, since the loan is larger. A larger loan at a lower interest rate still has large monthly payments. (I'd have to do the maths to be sure ...)

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#99

Post by baxtr »

bwb wrote: post #2

IMO... one of the most important benchmarks for judging the effectiveness of a government is the cost of housing. Cheap and basic housing is so key for economic well-being. I would love to see very basic, small, apartments created by governments on a mass level to try to overcome the current situation. Like persistently have a department of government just building to meet needed demands in economic centers. What oth…

And the best way to do this imo is to have the right incentives for investors to build affordable homes.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#100

Post by lores »

wruza wrote: post #91
lores wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans aren't rabbits. Humans tend to have children in inverse proportion to the amount of grass, poorer people having more children than richer ones. Of course it's not a direct correlation, or a simple one, but the effect is there.

Agreed. What does this tell us in the context of this discussion? Returning to the initial point, should people just build more houses?

More houses in locations people want to live in, yes. In the end, even leaving house prices aside, a larger population needs more housing, and the UK has been underbuilding several tens of thousands of units a year for decades.
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