Following on from various discussions about housing, Zoe Williams wades in with an interesting article in the Groan. In effect, she argues for more house building as a proposed solution. Well, yes. However, for that to be a realistic proposition, a long hard look at our current planning laws would be necessary.
Quite apart from likely local opposition to building on green field sites, there are still plenty of brown field sites that could do with renewing. And, it has to be said, that NIMBYs don’t always get their own way. The front garden development in Swindon was the subject of vigorous opposition yet today new houses are going up. Bristol and more recently Cardiff has benefited from a building programme that saw the old industrial harbour become homes and an environment that was, frankly, pretty shabby is now a pleasant place for people to live. It also covers Bucko’s point about using space efficiently. Although these places are not terraced houses as he suggests, the developments are certainly suitable for new buyers and are one or two bedroom flats squeezed into a relatively small footprint. I believe there are some in the new Cabot’s Circus development as well.
One point Williams makes in her article is that the panic about new homes not being built – a canard repeated by the Intergenerational Foundation’s report – is not really that true.
The conversation around housing in the UK has suddenly turned radical, despite the fact that the situation hasn’t changed that much: it is true that 2009 and 2010 saw the lowest peacetime level of new houses built for a century (118,000, down to 102,570), but home building was never sufficient to meet demand throughout the 1990s.
The situation is not radically different – i.e. demand for a certain type of home is still outstripping supply. That despite the fact that prices have stagnated and there are plenty of properties on the market that are not shifting. When we tried to sell about three years ago, we offered to find a chunk of our prospective buyer’s deposit. It was little more than a fancy way of reducing the price, but if it was presented as a loan to go towards the deposit, it reduced the loan to value ratio making a mortgage more achievable. It didn’t work, she still couldn’t get the mortgage and while lenders remain reluctant, this will continue and those properties will remain unsold.
What has been predictable from this discussion is the Georgist movement claiming that home owners are some kind of elite. Indeed in the discussion over at OoL I have been accused of suckling at the teats of the productive, all because I had the temerity to work hard, save up and buy my own home in preference to renting it. Apparently, this makes me some kind of privileged aristocrat as well. Well, if that’s the case, I’d like to see some benefit from this aristocracy. Where is all this unearned income I’m supposed to have? I’d like to spend some of it. You mean retailers won’t accept a few bricks from my front wall as currency? How remiss.
Joshing aside, Let’s be clear, here, the Georgist argument is little more than socialism wrapped in a different cloak – even Marx pointed that one out. When one buys a home, that is all we are doing; buying somewhere to live. Thereafter it is no one else’s business. And, the purchase of a home does not bring with it some sort of social debt. Nor does it affect anyone else. The idea that I have benefited from new homes going up around here in the past couple of years is pure fantasy. While the tree line I used to see from the back room is now a few rooftops, apart from that, I wouldn’t even be aware of their existence. Certainly no benefit has accrued to me – there has been no change in the infrastructure apart from the immediate vicinity of the new estate and nothing has changed with regards to property values (and even if they did, unless I sell and don’t buy elsewhere, I see no benefit) – they remain either static or slightly down on a couple of years ago. There are no new schools or hospitals as a consequence of this new estate, nor are there any new amenities. So, those people who bought those houses have had zero effect on the local population who already live here. None, zilch, nada, zero, nil. Nor do they owe us anything, just as we owe them nothing.
Naturally, during these discussions, I became embroiled in the LVT argument. Not that I particularly wanted to, as it simply rehashes old ground. Council tax is an example of a property based tax. Like all property based taxes, it takes no account of changing fortunes. As such, it may be a mere pittance to pay or it may break the bank, depending on how the individual’s fortunes are at the time of payment. At the beginning of this year I returned to the UK penniless, in debt and with no income. As such, I was not liable to pay either income tax or national insurance for that period. I was, however, liable for council tax. That I had no money cut no ice. Assets in excess of the government stipulated amount mean that I had to pay – despite having no money. Assets are not the same thing as money and may not be liquidated at the drop of a hat. The benefits system is remarkably hostile to the home owner paying a mortgage. Had we been tenants, benefits would have been comparatively easy. As it was, we borrowed from relatives and muddled through on Job seekers Allowance for about six weeks before finding low paid work to tide us over. And to those who accuse me of suckling on the productive, I would point out that quite apart from the thirty odd years I’ve been paying in, I have already paid back more in income tax this past six months than I drew out during those six weeks.
All of which is a digression from Williams’ point about housing.
Yet over the past fortnight suggestions have been floated that are all either terrifying or hilarious, depending on how far up the property ladder you are. The Intergenerational Foundation, established to promote fairness between generations, suggested that the elderly be taxed, or in some other way (maybe just supertax their stairlifts?) forced out of large properties. Even though there’s reference in the report to extended families, it’s still a bit rich, from a foundation whose aim is to build a bridge between generations, to ignore the fact that this home-owning generation already shoulders a huge amount of the burden of our skewed housing market. According to Shelter, a fifth of 18- to 34-year-olds have had to live with their parents because they couldn’t afford rent or a deposit.
She has a point you know. However, she hits on the really, really important one with the next paragraph:
Anyway, like a lot of housing policy, the idea runs aground on the fundamentals of personal liberty.
And that, frankly, is all that needs to be said.
Good post. I’m damned if I’m going to feel guilty about owning a small terraced house on a busy road. Probably some LVT bore would tell me that the land it’s built on was stolen from someone else in the dim and distant past, yeah shoot me I’m guilty of the sins of a feudal baron in the eleventh century.
Amazing to find someone at the Guardian who recognises the primacy of personal over collective liberty, not that there’s any such thing as the latter but try telling most of them that.
Yup, I don’t feel remotely guilty either and yes, it is interesting to see this in the Groan, hence my highlighting it.
The word guilt didn’t even cross my mind. It’s my house and I’ve paid for it. 4 bedrooms in a very pleasant part of Bristol (St Andrews) with just me, the wife and bonkers dog rattling round in it. Mine you bastards, hands off!
Appeals to personal Liberty with cut no ice with these creepy fuckers though will it? It’s for the common good innit?
Well the fundamental flaw in their suggestion (like banning smoking, booze, food etc it always starts as a suggestion) to punitively tax me out of my own hard earned home is that unless they manage to depress the housing market to such an extent that all houses are at least 50% cheaper or are prepared to massivly subsidise young parents with a brace of ankle biters, then they are still not going to be able to afford my house are they? Whether I am forced out or not. Houses round here go for between 300 and 700 thousand. So short of outright confiscation and re-allocation their nasty spiteful plan falls to bits.
Has Mark been bothering you?
Nothing he hasn’t said a dozen times before. It was another Georgist who accused me of suckling on the productive, which was a bit irksome, to say the least. What never ceases to amuse me is that Georgists cannot see that their philosophy is pure socialism. Indeed, it is so blindingly obvious even uncle Karl noticed it.