I have a problem with investors/speculators because they buy whatever is on the low end of the housing market and very often just sit on them. This has the effect of causing a lack of housing at the low end of the market and forcing the prices up.
Therefore the people on lower incomes that would buy these houses are not able to because of inflated purchase prices caused by shortage of properties.
This in turn has a knock on effect, because it puts a high demand on low cost social housing.
Of course, the right to buy scheme did a lot to reduce the amount of housing stock council's have at thier disposal. Also, any time a plan is mentioned to build new social/council housing, a protest group seems to spring up infuriated by the decision that the council wold dare to build properties at place X.
---------- Post added at 13:50 ---------- Previous post was at 13:46 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by olaole
They wanted to urge councils to start implementing this fully as theyre desperately looking at ways to cover the fact theyre simply not building affordable housing. Some ofthis money theyre throwing at the banks should have gone into construction and help to preserve a fundamental industry.
But if it smacks of common sense you can expect this government to give it a wide berth....
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......and very often whenever a plan is talked about to build more social housing, it fails very early on, usually because the area happens to be greenbelt, area on scientific interest, home to a rare kind of toad, etc(most of the time I suspect this is due to the "not in my back yard" effect).