George Monbiot was pontificating his politics of envy and spite on Jeremy Vine’s radio programme yesterday. The target of his bile being second home owners. People he regards as among the most selfish in Britain. It’s an old piece, but was reprised by Vine’s discussion:
What greater source of injustice could there be, that while some people have no home, others have two? Yet the vampire trade in second homes keeps growing – by 3% a year – uninhibited by government or by the conscience of the buyers. Every purchase of a second house deprives someone else of a first one. But to speak out against it is to identify yourself as a killjoy and a prig.
Well, as George says it himself, I don’t need to say it. Oh, dammit, I will; the man’s a killjoy and a prig. Not only that, but his inability to shut up and listen while others were putting across their point of view made him an unbearable, self-righteous and obnoxious boor. If he did have a rational argument (he didn’t), it was undermined by his behaviour.
The housing market is just that; a market. It is not a vampire trade, it is a legitimate exchange between consenting parties. Free countries operate that way. People have something they want to sell and others want to buy. They agree a price and the property changes hands. This process is the business of no one outside of the transaction. There are no preconditions beyond having the money to pay the agreed price and nor should there be. Whether the buyer has another home – or a dozen other homes, is also no one else’s business. If the buyer wants to use it for holiday accommodation, rent it out or live in it full time is again, no one else’s business.
The whole thing is driven by supply and demand. At present as George points out, there is more demand than supply, which is driving prices skyward. But to presume that putting second homes back on the market will somehow contribute to solving the housing crisis is, at best, naive and misses all the other contributing factors.
If you travel to Worth Matravers – the chocolate-box village in Dorset in which 60% of the houses are owned by ghosts – you will not find hordes of homeless people camping on the pavements in cardboard boxes. The market does not work like that. Young people from the village, unable to buy locally, have moved away, and contributed to the housing pressure somewhere else.
His logic is riven with assumption. People do not necessarily move away because they cannot buy locally.
Second homes are generally in rural areas or holiday resorts; much like Worth Matravers. The holiday home argument was raging when I was a teenager in the seventies. Then it about English people buying cottages in Wales and depriving the Welsh of affordable homes in their own village. Except that… it wasn’t like that. The propaganda sounds good, but it’s just not that simple. People who want to live in an area and don’t have independent means need to do as we all do; they have to get work. My own locality saw many of the younger generation leave the area as soon as they left school. Not because there was a dearth of affordable housing (that was relatively affordable), but because there was a dearth of gainful employment.
Selling a second home in, say Cornwall, will not help the homeless family in inner London. And, although not explicitly stated, Monbiot’s philosophy seems to revolve around a right to this property as opposed to it being a marketable commodity. Selling a property for a couple of hundred grand isn’t going to make it affordable to that inner city family on benefits. If sold, it is perfectly possible that the property will be rented; but again, in a holiday location it is entirely possible that it will be let as a holiday home or even remain on the market unsold and empty…
Those who find themselves homeless are not the ones who can afford to buy a home, they are the ones who cannot; so releasing more homes onto the market is not going to affect them, only those who have the wherewithal to raise the finance. Those who cannot will remain at the mercy of the council waiting lists. This does tend to suggest that the problem lies in part in a lack of council or housing association homes. Private property is just that and is best left to the regulator most appropriate for it; the market.
Monbiot’s solution to the 250,000 homes he believes should not be owned by their rightful purchasers is a swingeing 500% council tax. Now if there was ever an example of the politics of envy, this surely is it.
If caring about homelessness makes you a leftwing dinosaur, I raise my claw.
That he is happy to live with this label says much. However it is less, it seems, caring about homelessness than it is hatred of people who do not conform to his ideas about social responsibility. The more I hear socialism speak its mind, the further I move from it as I recoil in horror. The vampire here isn’t the property market, it’s something quite different.
I think the difference between you and Monbiot (and me), is that me and George believe that having somewhere to live is a fundamental human right, whereas you are only interested in protecting human rights if it affects the middle class.
While we have an estimated 100,000 homeless families, it does seem selfish for there to be 250,000 homes that are empty. If people can afford both the financial cost (and the cost to their conscience) of buying a second home, then they should have to contribute more taxation to pay for their selfishness – 500% council tax seems a small cost.
This argument that Cornish homes do not help the London homeless is wrong. Every person that is housed is one less on the streets, it is as simple as that. People move to get the best jobs they can, but a higher priority is obviously having somewhere to live. What you are saying is that none of the 100,000 homeless would relocate to where the housing became available.
I have even had people argue that building more homes does not help those in need of housing. How anyone can keep a straight face while coming out with this bile is beyond me.
Unfortunately, Neil, you make the same incorrect assumption as Monbiot. And, once more, you bring the silly “middle class” thing into the discussion. I work for a living, I have always worked for a living, I come from a family of people who work for a living. None of us is even remotely wealthy. So please, cut out the class war rubbish it doesn’t wash its face.
One more home on the market does not equate to one less homeless family – it just isn’t that simple and I’m sorry but if you really believe that you’ve missed the point entirely; as has Monbiot. There are more homes being built all the time, yet funnily enough, we still have homeless people. Your final paragraph, therefore is answered by observing reality. I can keep a straight face because your premise is being disproved every day with every new home built that does not relate to one less homeless family. There is a simple reason for this, housing costs money and private housing, which is what most of the new construction is, will not help those who cannot afford them and does not ease the housing shortage. This is because people who are coming onto the market go straight into them, bypassing the homeless. It isn’t like a queue in the bank where people seeking a home start behind the homeless family and patiently wait their turn.
George may indeed believe that housing is a fundamental human right – I got that from his vitriolic diatribe. However in the real world housing has to be paid for and the private property market requires enough money to either pay outright or fund a mortgage. The people who are homeless do not fall into either capacity. Therefore, freeing up private property will not help them and never will. To suggest that an effect in one place will have a direct and calculable result elsewhere in something as complex as the housing market and its associated movements in people and jobs is naive and displays a lack of understanding of the complexity of the subject.
Relocating to where there is housing is again a flawed premise – you have to pay for your housing. Without a job, you can’t do it. Remote rural areas where these properties are tend also to be economically depressed or have seasonal work. Again, your argument just doesn’t hold up – unless you are suggesting they scrounge from the state?
What is it that you and George think that punishing second home owners will achieve? Some people will decide to sell or not buy in the first place, causing a drop in the market and maybe a small localised fall in prices. Some will find creative ways to avoid the increased tax. Those who are really wealthy will cough up and nothing changes. People who have homes to sell in such locations will find the market diminished and more houses will be unsold, remain empty and fall into disrepair. Perhaps you would like the council to step in and
stealcommandeer them?Perhaps you should be arguing for more state funded housing projects. Or are you doing as Monbiot is covertly doing and arguing for state ownership of all housing? That way, his model would, indeed work. Otherwise it is patent nonsense.
Frankly the idea of state ownership of housing would see me leave these shores very quickly. I will never live in a society where someone else owns the house in which I live.
To be fair, second homes in Cornwall have been part of the impetus for rising house prices in Cornwall. There are villages where home ownership has been put beyond the reach of local young people. Please note that Cornwall has a severe homeless/inadequate housing problem.
There is also the danger that the heart is taken out of some of these villages. In the Winter they have as much life as a morgue. This is increasingly leading to a problem with local shops etc closing.
I write this as a Cornishman. This issue is felt very strongly down there
It’s very similar in Wales where I have some experience of the problem. However, without gainful employment, the private housing market remains unattainable for those you mention. Monbiot seems to be missing the fact that the housing sector falls into three broad categories; the private sector, privately rented and council or housing association housing. His model presumes a fluid movement between the three. Something not borne out by reality. To suggest as he did on Jeremy Vine’s programme that selling a privately owned house in Cornwall would create a chain of events leading to a vacant tenancy in inner London is fanciful.
Cornwall suffers the same kind of economic depression suffered in other rural areas. Releasing private housing stock won’t put the heart back into the community if young people leave the area because they have to in order to find work. I say as I said earlier, punishing second home owners is not the solution. It never was. If there is a homelessness problem in Cornwall, build more council or housing association houses (or the council could buy private property at the going rate) so that people who cannot afford private property and are therefore most likely to be homeless can afford somewhere to live.
Well, yes, that happens everywhere that relies on tourism for its economy. I’m afraid the response to that; harsh though it sounds; is that’s life. Get used to it. Forcing second home-owners to sell is just as likely to result in unsold empty houses. Young people seeking better things will still leave to seek their fortune and the summer visitors will go home after their holiday.