In this book, Brian Lund builds on contemporary housing crisis narratives, which tend to focus on the growth of a younger 'generation rent, ' to include the differential effects of class, age, gender, ethnicity and place, across the United Kingdom. Current differences reflect long-established cleavages in UK society, and help to explain why housing crises persist. Placing the UK crises in their global contexts, Lund provides a critical examination of proposed solutions according to their impacts on different pathways through the housing system. As the first detailed analysis of the multifaceted origins, impact and potential solutions of the housing crisis, this book will be of vital interest to policy practitioners, professionals and academics across a wide range of areas, including housing studies, urban studies, geography, social policy, sociology, planning and politics.
Frequently asked questions
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on âCancel Subscriptionâ - itâs as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time youâve paid for. Learn more here.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlegoâs features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan youâll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, weâve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes, you can access Housing in the United Kingdom by Brian Lund in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Sociology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
The media, think tanks, political debate and academia are replete with âhousing crisisâ accounts. Press headlines proclaim âUK facing its biggest housing shortfall on recordâ (Independent2018) and âThe Tories are failing to fix Britainâs housing crisisâ (Sun 2018). âThink tanksâ declare that a âCapitalist revolution in housebuilding is necessaryâ (Adam Smith Institute 2018) and analyse issues such as âHow the broken land market drives our housing crisisâ (New Economics Foundation 2018) and âThe future fiscal cost of âGeneration Rent ââ (Resolution Foundation 2018). Academics offer âRadical Solutions to the UK Housing Crisis â (Bowie 2017) and Dorling (2014) has proclaimed a âGreat Housing Disasterâ. An examination of housing crisis references by MPs revealed a ninefold increase between 2006 and 2015 (Hudson 2015). Prime Minister, Theresa May , backed the crisis account declaring âOur broken housing market is one of the greatest barriers to progress in Britain todayâ (May 2017).
Fatalism has accompanied these narratives. Pundits claim that housing is now the âclassic wicked problem â; deeply entrenched, complex and unpredictable (Taylor 2015). Resignation to events seems to have permeated the top civil service. Appearing before the Select Committee on Public Accounts, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), when asked if she agreed that housing crisis will ever be resolved, replied:
It will continue as it has done for decades. I agree, and that will show itself primarily in affordability and, in some places, in homelessness . I am simply being honest with you. (Dawes 2017)
Politicians stress that the housing problem is deeply embedded. Sajid Javid , when Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, said âfor decades the pace of house building has been sluggish at bestâ (Javid 2017a) and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond , asserting âthere is no magic bulletâ to rectify the housing problem (Hammond, quoted in Daily Mail2017).
Crisis stories usually spotlight the post-2004 homeownership decline as the emergency hallmark with boosting new house construction the favoured remedy. Yet, the current crisis has deep-seated roots, located in long-established cleavages in UK society based on class , age , gender , ethnicity and place . There are diverse housing crises and overcoming them requires more than a step change in housing supply.
Until 2016, the electorate seems to have accepted the âwicked problem â story, tolerating high prices, lower space standards, exorbitant rents , declining homeownership and homelessness , as if resigned to the idea that there was no alternative to the inevitable outcomes generated by market forces. Crisis victims must wait patiently until the market solved the problem. However, as the housing situation deteriorated, its generational dimension became more pronounced and the class , gender , ethnicity and place cleavages embedded in the crisis intensified. The 2016 European Union referendum and the 2017 General Election demonstrated a changing public mood. In Greek, crisisâÎșÏÎŻÏÎčcâmeans both a âturning pointâ and a âjudgementâ. The electorate delivered a verdict on Conservative Party housing policies: the housing crisis had become a political crisis.
Homeownership
The press focuses on homeownership decline as the main housing crisis dimension. The Daily Mirror (2016) stated that the âUK housing crisis was now a âânational emergencyââ as number of homeowners plummets to a 30-year lowâ and the Daily Mail (2018) announced âThe end of the home-owning dreamâ. The homeownership rate in England fell from 68.7% in 2004 to 65.2% in 2010. This trend persuaded post-2010 Conservative-led governments to introduce measures to try to stimulate owner-occupation such as Help to Buy loans, a 3% extra Land Stamp Duty Tax levy on second homes and a reduction in tax concessions for private landlords . Nonetheless, the owner-occupier proportion in England continued to decline, reaching 62.6% in 2016/2017 (MHCLG 2018a).
In a new attempt to boost owner-occupation , Teresa Mayâs government exempted homes costing less than ÂŁ300,000 from Land Stamp Duty Tax (LSDT) if bought by first-time buyers , thereby giving them a further advantage over private landlords in the housing market . This measure, combined with the long-term impact of earlier initiatives, may increase the homeowner rate but, as Corlett and Judge (2017, p. 6) claim: âEven in a best-case scenario millennials will not achieve the same homeownership levels the baby boomers enjoyâ. Indeed, some commentators allege that homeownership is now a âfetishâ or a âcultâ (Posen 2013). It is an idealistic aspiration and âgeneration rent â must be satisfied with renting. The Guardian (2016) announced âHome ownership is unrealisticâ and Sean OâGrady (2016), writing in the Independent, declared, âNewsflash, young people : owning your own home isnât a human right â your sense of entitlement wonât solve thisâ. In the New Statesman, Julia Rampen (2016) said âThe property-owning democracy is dead, so build one for renters insteadâ.
The overall owner-occupation figure masks marked changes in homeownership rates according to age , with owner-occupation increasing in retired households but falling amongst working households (see Fig. 1.1).
One reason for the homeownership decline amongst younger people has been the increase in house prices relative to incomes. Cribb et al. (2018a) plotted the average UK house price and the average net income growth for those aged 25â34, revealing that between 1995/1996 and 2015/2016 net income grew by 21% whereas house prices increased by 156%. They state:
âŠin 2015â16 almost 90% of 25-to 34-year-olds faced average regional house prices of at least four times their income, compared with less than half twenty years earlier. At the same time, 38% faced a house-price-to-income ratio of over 10, compared with just 9% twenty years ago. (Cribb et al. 2018a, p. 1)
The house price hike pushed mortgage payments as a proportion of first-time buyers â mean take-home pay from 19.0% in 1996 to 33% in 2017, ranging from 20.5% in the North to 64.9% in London (Nationwide 2018), despite the reductions in mortgage interest rates after 2009. Raising a deposit became a significant homeownership barrier. In response to 2000s credit boom, alleged to be responsible for the post-2008 recession, the deposit necessary to become a homeowner increased. In 2006, the average first-time buyer deposit across the UK was ÂŁ15,168, but, in 2017, it was ÂŁ33,899. In London, the average...
Table of contents
Cover
Front Matter
1. The Housing Crisis
2. The Slow-Burning Fuses
3. Housing Crises
4. Location, Location, Location
5. Future Housing Requirements
6. Making Better Use of the Existing Housing Stock