Raab’s use of outdated and oversimplified evidence is foolhardy
In response to demands that he produce the evidence for his claim that immigration is driving up house prices, the housing minister has now published the calculations. Do they back up his argument? First, it must be said that researching the drivers of house price increases is fraught with difficulty as there are so many […]
Raab’s claims about immigration oversimplify a complex housing problem
Dominic Raab, the housing minister, has rightly been asked to produce the evidence to back up his claim that immigration has put up house prices by 20 per cent over the past 25 years when the research suggests that immigration is just one factor pushing up housing demand and a minor one at that. The […]
Government policy needs to return to building homes to let at modest rents
As the latest UK Housing Review is published, co-author John Perry describes how government priorities have shifted from direct investment in affordable housing to personal subsidy through housing benefit. If asked about how the government spends money on housing, most people would probably say they build council houses – but of course they’d be wrong. […]
Developers are skimping on low-cost housing: time to get tough
The government is so scared of antagonising developers that it is failing to insist on affordable homes being built. The government has missed another opportunity to put the building of affordable housing where it belongs – at the heart of planning policy. Affordable homes that are built when developers get planning permission for a housing […]
Another housing privatisation disaster
When the Ministry of Defence sold its armed forces housing in 1996, it already looked a bad deal: 57,000 houses were sold for £30,000 each, well under half the average house price at the time. Overnight, the sale created Britain’s biggest private landlord and gave it a blue chip tenant – the MoD. Yet the […]
Social rented housing is disappearing at a time we need it most
Building of new homes for letting at social rents has fallen to a trickle – just 5,380 in the last financial year. The past five years have seen just 50,290 built altogether, most of these financed by social landlords without grant aid. Theresa May has promised to revive social renting “in those parts of the […]
If the government wants to tackle racial inequality it must act from the top
The government’s race disparity audit presents some basic facts about ethnic minorities and their position in the housing market. But incredibly, it says almost nothing about why the “disparities” with white British people occur. For example, the problem of discrimination is mentioned only once in the report, and then in relation to jobs. You can […]
Good news for the sector but what will the rent settlement’s impact be?
The announcement that social rents will rise one per cent ahead of inflation for five years from 2020 has been widely welcomed. The most important aspect of the announcement is the timescale – a five-year settlement, with no further cuts in rents, offers the stability in their incomes that landlords need to plan their investment, […]
Councils and housing associations should define affordability together
If you work for a local authority or housing association, does it know whether its rents are affordable to those on low incomes, and if so how has it worked this out? Does it do its own assessment, or just rely on government guidelines? How will this change in future and what are the implications […]
Housing in Europe: How does Ireland compare?
Europe has become a continent of owner-occupiers. That might be the conclusion from looking at the article in this year’s UK Housing Review on the state of housing in Europe. But the real picture is more complex, revealing some interesting comparisons between Ireland and its EU neighbours. Whereas some time ago both Ireland and the […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on