Talk:Affordability of housing in the United Kingdom

Housing

I am not a smart property buyer, so please tell me how this relates to the US market, and what "price to income" ratio we have historically and what it is now. thanks Steve

Hi Steve. I don't know but these people may. JASpencer 17:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The US market is a misnomer, the US operates, at best 'regional markets' (and otherwise state markets). The US housing market is definitely looking like a bubble (defined as when people begin to purchase housing, regardless of cost and mortgage payments, purely for capital gains), but this depends heavily where the housing is available. The price-to-income rate has to be calculated on a local basis, but you also have to consider the location. New York City, like London (where I live) is much more compact than Alabama, as a whole, and will have many more wealthy people living in the centre of the city, as compared to a state as a whole. This means that, even within New York City, people living in Manhattan will have higher incomes and may throw off a price-to-income graph for the whole city. The US markets, in general, I feel are heading for trouble (due to several factors, not just housing), but it really depends where you live. If the area is cheap and hasn't appreciated for what appears little reason, you'll be fine (or better off). The trouble is that the US does not suffer from housing shortages (unlike Britain, which has household formation that exceeds new construction, meaning that property is often converted into flats, etc.). So the there is little reason for a housing boom, other than low interest rates and a perception of 'get rich quick'. Cheers, Nick Kerr 20:42, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Updates

This article should be updated to include information about the structure of the housing market, issues with things like planning permission and infrastructure, and also issues like the North-South divide, which produces scope for the increases we've seen in the past few years (where Scotland and the North of England have much faster rises in property values than London and the SouthEast). Also, mortgage reliefs were removed around 1992, but rental income is still taxed separately from Income Tax, making it more advantageous for those earning at the Upper Rate of income tax to own property for investment purposes, as compared to shares, bonds, or simple bank deposits. Nick Kerr 09:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Older history

Could someone add information about prices earlier in the 20th century? mavhc 11:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Nationwide has data going back to 1952 (plotting a log of the index over time is quite interesting). AFAIK there are no readily available older sources, which is a shame - I'd be especially interested to see the impact of the introduction of planning law in the 1920s. Calum (talk) 17:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Graph on page only goes back to 1975. I suspect the missing data would be an interesting addition to the long term trend shown on the graph, but if I am wrong that would all the more call for a graph showing as long a span of years as possible (since plainly I need to be educated too). Another interesting graph would be house prices compared to average household incomes.Sandpiper (talk) 08:07, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

This article plots the Bank of England dataset which goes back to 1845. 78.151.176.30 (talk) 15:22, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Advertising for "propertysearchnow.com"

The domain www.propertysearchnow.com ("UK Property Guide with Maps & Photos.") is really quite useless, full with google adwords and some completely irrelevant information such as Forex trading and tax havens! It is almost certainly spam. I seriously question its inclusion as an external link.

Not familiar with the wikipedia system so please excuse any mistakes here. 81.106.150.95 18:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Not NPOV

I have deleted the reference to a 'communist system of planning controls' since that is hardly NPOV. In fact, the actual communists in Eastern Europe were in fact rather keen on building - hence the vast number of ugly tower blocks you see there!

The way the article is phrased also fails to mention one of the main reasons why the deregulatory Conservative govt of 1979-1997 failed to liberalise the system. Existing middle-class home-owners don't like new developments going up in their area and so they like their local councils to have the power to block them! The article at the moment is written from far too much of a right-wing POV. Will try and make it more neutral. Vino s 19:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• To be honest the title itself is not NPOV is it? Andehandehandeh 23:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I thought it was called "British Housing Bubble", but that was a redirect. I still think the use of the word 'bubble' is not NPOV as we can hardly say the market will definitely 'pop'. Andehandehandeh 23:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

• I am changing the text as some of the recent edits put in some further NPOV material.80.47.178.138 13:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

If someone with a relevant knowledge of economy could rephrase a lot of this article it would probably be more helpful. At present the article seems very POV, although not knowing anything relevant about economics, I may be completely wrong. However, the constant asserios that greenbelt and planning offices override personal freedoms, the lack of any citations to this effect or of any counterarguments, and the addition of embedded external links gives this article a very POV tone, as though written by an angry developer. Yasha212.139.165.254 12:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I've changed quite a lot of it today to take out some of the more outrageously NPOV stuff, but this is hard without just deleting massive sections. I've also put in some links some sources which might provide firmer evidence for those who want to help get this article up to scratch. Andehandehandeh 16:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

It could be argued that as my wife is a (very) hard working Planning Officer, trying her best to protect her fellow ordinary citizens from unscrupulous developers (is there any other kind?) who would literally cover every last inch of this green, pleasant and already overcrowded land, I shouldn't be commenting. However the tone of this article indicates that NPOV has been abolished so I suppose I can go ahead. Each reference to planning departments and greenbelt carries an overt perjorative tone and I believe they should be removed. Especially given the lack of citation. In fact I think I might do that myself. Bearing in mind the supposed sanctity of NPOV on WikiP it is kind of the author to include (POV) to indicate those bits which are POV and should be so removed. This biased and skewed article should be hacked to pieces and left as a purely objective look at what has happened to house prices in recent years and where possible a drawing together of citable material that purports to explain why. Currently citation-lite. Scorzon 13:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• I think it's unfair to describe all developers as unscrupulous. Surely a planning officer's role is to facilitate sound development as well stop bad stuff. I agree that planning departments are unfairly scapegoated though. They get a lot of flack for decisions that are actually made by poorly trained local councillors on planning committees. I agree with the slash and burn approach to this article until someone can provide some proper NPOV content with sources. I will try and add bits and pieces if I ever get the time.Andehandehandeh 23:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact now that I come to think of it, I strongly object to this diatribe - every day I hear stories of how planning departments fight to persuade fat cat developers that they should build higher density, smaller homes on the land that they acquire, instead of huge 5 bed executive homes. But of course, the exec homes yield a greater profit. Scorzon 14:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably the particular cause of your upset has been edited out of the article by now, but it seems to me a couple of points need making in response to the above. I have no doubt that developers are unscrupulous, but that does not make them a bad thing. They represent public demand for property: If there were no consumer demand, there would be no business to conduct, whether scrupulously or otherwise. The contention within the planning system is precisely because the great weight of economic pressure is expressing a demand for more and better housing, none whatsoever for preservation of countryside. This begs the question of how the planning system has become so completely out of line with public demand. Britain long since passed the population level where it could be self sufficient in food production, so arguing to preserve land to make it so is largely futile. Aside from this, the question is how we wish to best use the entire surface space of the british Isles for our own leisure usage, which is what preservation of countryside today is really about. It simply isnt true that more than a small proportion of land is developed in the sense of being built on, though almost all of it is covered by a man made environment, including all that is described as 'natural'. In general, the british Isles has a very unnatural flora and fauna because of its geologically recent coverage in ice, and more recently because we have chosen what to grow on virtually all of it. Sandpiper (talk) 08:55, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

PricedOut

Is this pressure group noteworthy enough to be mentioned? How big are they? Have they had any impact yet? I'm not necessarily saying they haven't, I just haven't heard of them outside this and they seem to get a few mentions. Andehandehandeh 16:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I saw them mentioned on Channel 4 news, a while back, although I have no proof of it.82.24.115.150 20:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Buy to Let

At the same time as removing pejorative comments about planning departments and greenbelt, I have removed a misconception about the 'buy to let' investor (of which I am not BTW). The assertion that these people amplify the lack of housing supply is patently ridiculous. They do nothing of the sort. When they buy a house it does not magically disappear, it becomes available for lease as a home. It may stop someone else from buying it, but they can always rent it. Demolition experts and possibly those buying second (and third) homes in this country amplify the problem, as do developers who prefer to develop 5 bed executive homes on the same footprint that 2 flats and a 2 bed starter home could be built.

• Yes I would agree that buy-to-let doesn't necessary affect availability of housing, but there is also the area a buy-to-leave where investors are buying up property off plan, then not letting and just looking to make money on capital gains. Even then it could hardly be said to 'cause' the crisis, because numerically it still must be a drop in the ocean compared to demand.Andehandehandeh 23:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Back in the late 1990s, buy-to-let accounted for about 1% of loans taken out for the purposes of buying a house. Today, these property speculators account for 9% of outstanding home loans. In 2006, 330,000 buy-to-let mortgages were taken out, making it the fastest growing part of the housing market. This is a product of cheap money creating speculation in prices, the first time buyers are replace by speculators pricing them out the market then renting the property back to people who would of in the past been first time buyers. The number of owner occupiers is in decline as the number houses sold to buy to let investor was almost double the number of new homes built. There has been no significant rise in rental rates that you would expect if there was significant shortage of property. To say its "patently ridiculous" that BTL is pushing up prices is stretching credulity.

I didn't say that BTL don't push up prices, I never mentioned prices, I merely said that it is patently ridiculous to suggest that they amplify, i.e. make bigger, the lack of housing. I stand by that. Scorzon 21:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Actually* The buy to let boom does affect housing supply! Not in the absolute number of properties, but in the availability of those properties to buy. The statement 'When they buy a house it does not magically disappear, it becomes available for lease as a home' is true, but what is equally true is that that house is no longer available to buy. What happens is that the buy-to-let investor competes with the 1st time buyer in the market - both with very different goals. The presence of the buy-to-let (2nd or 3rd property acquirer) increases the demand artificially and at any point in time that a buy-to-let buyer gets a house at the expense of a 1st (or other buyer), the price goes up artificially. Of course you can only describe this as artificial if you consider residential property to be first and formost homes and not investments which is clearly now debatable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.30.250 (talk) 07:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Cause of the Crisis

I have removed several blatantly untrue and POV statements from this section of the article, which has resulted in the loss of the first paragraph. The second I have left in as I cannot definitely refute them. The T&CP Act 1947 DID NOT introduce greenbelts, they were introduced by Sandys in around 1955 and the act was not put in place to encourage people to move to the new towns, that is patently not what it was for. In short the paragraph became at this point untenable so I removed it.Scorzon 14:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Homelessness? Priceless

The housing crisis has caused high levels of homelessness in recent years (no proof and no citation), especially for critical personnel (nurses, teachers, police, firepersons, etc.) Policemen are living in cardboard boxes now? Who's going to move them on? --Dilaudid 23:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly and I notice that the house building figures that show the increase in number of new homes being built has been removed.

Bubble mentality?

I see that there is much on this page about Buy-to-let and home building, yet nothing that mentions bubble mentality and low interest rates. Surely these deserve a mention on this page? I am happy to put them in but am so surprised they're not here already I thought it best to check to see whether concensus is they'd improve the article or not Speedything (talk) 12:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Misrepresentation

I wonder if the person who added this appalling piece of misrepresenatation would like to justify it -

"An admitted error on the part of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, led it to cut interest rates in August 2005."

BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Evan Davis

-- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 19:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought it had been admitted, I don't think anyone would seriously question it was an error now, not even the MPC. Except perhaps those that are now claiming that no one saw this coming (or the PM's the Americans caused it), which is the line being taken in the City. Well you can't blame them if they admitted that the writing was on the wall all along then they are not worth their bonuses and no more intelligent than the share buying Shoe shine boys of 1929. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.225.141 (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Housing Crash

Would it not be appropriate for a significant mention of the predicted property crash/stagnation? (Mythiran (talk) 17:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC))

No. It would likely conflict with too many of WP policies and guidelines which was the problem with the article prior to cleanup. Thanks for asking though <g> ! -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 09:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Such a shortage of housing supply that prices have fallen every month for the last 12 months. This article is surely a credit to wikipedia. --Dilaudid (talk) 00:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

What a rubbishy article

Nearly as bad as the one on professionalism last time I looked (dont like looking at it - its so awful).

Someone needs to devise a structure to it that others can fill in and elaborate. For example: History, Supply, Demand, and so on. And what does this mean? "House prices at the end of 2006 were 35% above the trend prices of the last 30 years." 80.2.200.169 (talk) 00:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

It is, due to the lack of content. Before it had a load of content, but it was not encyclopedic and breached Wikipedia policies and guidelines - personal opinion, original research, and unverified content which resulted in it's removal. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The trend price is the long term price of house prices when the peaks and slumps are removed in this case over 30 years, a simple trend line. The Nationwide building society to its credit has published this for some years and it shows that prices only go up around 2% in real terms in the long term. Assets values be they shares or houses generally return to the long term trend, despite claims by investors that "it is different this time". The problem with this article is that is that it has to be series of facts because of the belief that there is a housing shortage, that is used to support house prices that are 35% above 30 year trend line. Most people and the media believe that is why the house price are high and there is a real shortage of housing in the UK. The lack of increase in rents in line with house price suggest this is a myth, but if you write this in the article others will remove it (as has happened many times), as many people in the UK are very financially exposed if this is true. All you can do is state statistics and hopefully enough people reading the article will spot the dangers of being 35% above trend. In previous slumps falling prices did not stop once they got back to the trend line they fell well below it before recovering. In Japan (over crowed Islands like UK) prices dropped almost 70% from peak and this was removed when I put it in the article! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.34.8 (talk) 16:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

There's no conspiricy theory. Editors decided to add material that breached Wikipedia policies and guidelines, so it was removed. People need to read the policies and guidelines and decide whether or not they are willing to work within them, if not, Wikipedia is not the place for them.

The calculations for a trend line do not remove peaks and slumps. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

A trend line OVER 30 YEARS or more will remove the peaks and slumps, you can see this on the Nationwide website, there are no peaks just a steadily raising trend line when adjusted for inflation. Investors use trend line prices to remove or if you prefer smooth out the peaks and slumps to find long term trends. If the peaks and slumps remained it would not generally be considered by many investors to be a trend line. Markets prices fluctuate a lot and experienced investors (particularly value investors) try to remove these fluctuation to find a longer term trend line when trying to value or forecast future prices. If you study investment history, what you find is that things don't really change that much, you get repeating tech bubbles such as Canals, Railways, the Internet or for example in UK house prices appear to follow a 18 year cycles going back almost 300 years. Therefore a 30 year trend line removes the peaks and troughs of the 18 year cycles and history show that prices generally fall back to the trend line or below in time. These trends can break down once investors take them into account, but this does not appear to have happened in the last 10 years and recent price falls are consistent with the 18 cycle. William —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.225.141 (talk) 20:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I see all references to the Nationwides house price trend line have been removed http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwide-national-inflation.php which is odd considering how clearly it shows the rise in house prices was a bubble and appears to support the 18 cycle theory. The housing shortage reasons given for the growth in house prices were not true, the rise and the now the fall in prices is caused by the supply of credit and land speculation. By removing this it hides the fact that house price crash was predictable. Who ever removed it, in the light of 20% fall in prices in real terms in 2008 would have the decency to put it back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.225.141 (talk) 22:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletion?

I have to agree that this is a dreadful article. I dont think it contains anything that warranted the creation of a specific article on this issue. Unless someone can provide some structured, researched, viable information on the subject is it not better to delete it? Paulmallon (talk) 14:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This used to be about the British Property Bubble.

Why has this changed? This used to be about the British Property Bubble. The US one (and those for other countries) have a whole host of useful information. Has someone with a vested interest damaged or deleted the original British Property Bubble?

What is needed may include:-

Historical norms

 House prices to wages (gross, net, disposable)
 Renting being generally more expensive than buying (because owners have to factor in repair and risk).
 Capital appreciation averages over long periods.
 Average rental returns
 

Reasons For Bubble

 Other investments poor performance
   Tech Stock
   Pensions 
   Endowments

 Bubble mentality
   Houses as pensions
   Seminars (Inside Track etc)
     Purchases of multiple properties by people who have never visited the city or town
   Builders' incentives - inflating price and lowering stated loan-to-value by paying deposit      
   Chasing capital appreciation instead of rental returns (or rental substitution if buying for yourself)
   Fear of being left behind
   Greed of getting money for nothing
   Low interest rates
   Spin
     Stated lack of housing while in excess of half a million properties are vacant (800,000+, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/707942.stm)
   Lenders chasing market share, ignoring risk and not checking documentation
   Fraud 
     Self-certified lies/exaggeration
     Fake payslip companies
     BBC documentary (2002?) on in-branch mortgage advisors recommending mis-stating income
     Overpaying, splitting difference then cashback from lender
     Money from crime proceeds
     Pressures on brokers not to be strict

Also

 Aversion to other investment types on ethical or mistrust basis
 Planning regulations
 'Builders'  as land bank companies, subcontracting building to others.
 FSA's responses
 Bank Of England (BOE) 
   Inflation - 
     Previously Retail Price Index (RPI)
     Then RPIX (excludes mortgages, includes renting I believe)
     Finally CPI (Consumer Prices Index) - excludes mortgages, includes rents
   Do not target asset bubbles 

References

 Fred Harrison 
 Robert Beckman ('Crashes' - book 1988, predicting 89-95 housing slump and Japanese housing crash).
 Housepricecrash.co.uk
 Empty Homes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/707942.stm
 Empty Homes Agency

That's all I can think of for now. But I'm sure this could be expanded and prove useful. The current article is pointless other than seeming (to me) to be biased in favour of increased prices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.71.227 (talk) 10:08, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It was deleted and redirected as a result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/British property bubble. In short, it failed basic Wikipedia standards. People have to decide whether they are going to comply with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, if not, Wikipedia is not the place for them. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 11:33, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Daytona2, I have stated a series of facts which were negative to rising prices and have found these have been remove. i.e. the Nationwide house price long term trends lines. I am not going add to this page any more and I suggest you step a side as well, as I notice you have an interest in "landlord and tenant law" are you a buy to let landlord? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.225.141 (talk) 23:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Name change

Hi. I changed the name, to reflect the specific subject matter of this article. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 13:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Without any consultation, which was arrogant behavior, at odds with WP policy. This has now resulted in a confused merge proposal to try and sort out the mess. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 10:55, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Housing crisis

I have removed the more blatant examples of PoV, but this section still needs a re-write and citations to support most of the assertions. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 06:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merge

I have proposed that British property bubble be merged with this page, as they seem to cover substantially similar topics and duplicate some of the same information. It is possible that we could have two separate articles, but in that case this one would have to be rewritten to be explicitly about the 2008 house price crash, while the other one concentrates on the bubble up to 2007. I think covering both topics in the same article would be easier. Terraxos (talk) 15:33, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I support this suggestion. My vote is for moving content from this page to the "bubble" article. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose The AFD redirect to this articles previous name should be enforced (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/British property bubble). It was overturned by this edit. This article was moved without consultation from 'Residential property market in the United Kingdom'. It should be returned to something similar I propose 'United Kingdom Property Market' to include commercial property for which there is not enough information yet for a separate article. Then it should be developed with, amoungst other things, balanced coverage of all significant booms and busts eg 1930s decline, 1940s increase, 1950s decline, 1970s increase and decline, 1980s decline and increase, 1990s decline & 2000 increase. Unbalanced concentration on just one aspect of the subject, as occurs presently, is unencyclopedic. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 10:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Need history

There has always been a housing shortage crisis, worldwide, so we need some history on that, if anyone can help. Stars4change (talk) 17:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

This is an article about an issue which is time- and place-specific: the undersupply and affordability of housing in contemporary Britain. Affordable housing or even house would be a better place for discussion of the global issues.Pondle (talk) 22:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Anti-Rent War

I'm adding a link to Anti-Rent War because renting causes poverty, obviously, & crime because it is oppression (slavery). Stars4change (talk) 17:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted your addition because an article about an incident in US history has little connection to the contemporary undersupply of housing in the UK. And your statement about renting is opinion - Wikipedia isn't the place for polemics. Renting has advantages and disadvantages, and believe or not some people in certain circumstances prefer it to actually buying a home. In any case, the proper place to discuss all this is the actual renting article.Pondle (talk) 22:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

2009 Graph

The graph is dated 2009. It may be worth updating to 2012 - the raw data has moved to here - http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/datadownload/data_download.htm 86.21.255.166 (talk) 11:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Needs great improvement or deletion

If this article was really about affordability then it would include discussion of changes in mortgage rates (and hence average mortgage payments) compared to average incomes over time. As none of these are mentioned at all (at the time of writing) then the article just appears to be a rant or moan. The Halifax, as far as I recall, publishes an Affordability Index, and others may as well, but this is not mentioned at all. Houses or flats are always going to be expensive because they require a lot of resources materials labour and land to make them. 2.101.12.56 (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

This article has been out of date for a very long time. I agree it should be deleted as no one has been prepared to undertake the necessary extensive revisions. Tomintoul (talk) 08:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest that anyone who considers any wikipedia article to have significant shortcomings should spend time improving it, rather than attempt to delete it. The encyclopedia did not begin from fully formed articles on every imaginable subject, but people writing vitual one sentence articles which slowly grow. This seems to be a highly contentious subject, and the usual method to resolve such difficulties is by adding additional information which has been well sourced. Sandpiper (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Some affordability indicies

I think the Halifax do an affordability index, perhaps other lenders too. Here are links to two others I have just found:

http://data.london.gov.uk/housingmarket/ Scroll down the page and eventually you will see a graph. It shows that a typical repayment mortgage is currently (2 Feb 2015) about 21% of income and surprisingly that this figure has been unchanged since 2009.

http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/media/press/4103 Scroll down to table 3 and chart 3. Cost of repayment mortgage currently only 18.4% of income.

The conventional norm has been that housing costs are around 33% of income, so way below this currently. My theory was that as the cost of food and clothing has plummeted over the decades (people used to spend 1/3 of their income on food 70 or so years ago I understand) then people would choose to use this surplus to spend more on better housing. 2.97.209.137 (talk) 21:37, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Rent?

This article is entirely about the affordability of houses for sale. It doesn't address homes for rent at all — except from the perspective of the landlord! Very poor balance. --Gerrit ^CUTEDH 14:56, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Attempt to update article

This article had been tagged as outdated for many years. Much of the copy/data related to the situation eight years ago in 2007. I have put in recent information, but the article is far too short and requires expanding. Tomintoul (talk) 09:07, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Land values

Tomintoul please note firstly that a Wiki is not a reliable source as per WP:RS and secondly that the page you have linked to does not contain the content you have added. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 10:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Absolutelypuremilk you are quoting a pressure group which is a biased source. It is important a neutral POV is maintained.

Absolutelypuremilk I hope we are moving towards consensus.Tomintoul (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure there is a compromise position here, you have presented no evidence so far that house prices do not depend on land prices. The source that you have included does not argue this at all, indeed it says in its first paragraph: "Land is the fundamental ingredient in the construction of new homes. Many of the issues limiting the rate of new home building can be traced back to the pricing and availability of land for residential development." Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 13:43, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, I have shown that land prices are a reflection of house prices. The reference I have quoted (and there are many others) shows that the value of land is based on the estimated sale value of houses less building costs, less profit. When house prices fall, land prices fall. We are both reflecting different sides of an argument that has endured for decades, and we won't resolve it here. The important point is that overall the article has a neutral POV, as I'm sure you are aware. Tomintoul (talk) 16:51, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

You have shown that land prices are partially based on what the land would be worth if it was built on, which is correct. You have not provided any evidence about house prices, unless you are wanting to argue that house price rises lead to land price rises lead to house price rises. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 18:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

See Land development. Gross development value (GDV) is the starting point for calculating land value, thus the price of land is set by the price of houses.Tomintoul (talk) 20:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm still failing to see your point, are you disputing the fact that planning restrictions make land which does have planning permission more expensive or are you making a separate point? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree there is a degree of conflation in the article. Planning restrictions clearly do impact upon land values, however given that the planning restrictions are extant, land value is determined by house prices. Let us both have a look at this. Tomintoul (talk) 12:03, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your most recent edit to the article, I think this clarifies things greatly. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 12:14, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Empty Homes

Absolutelypuremilk I agree the the 'Empty Homes' section should really be an article in its own right; it is somewhat tangential to the issue of affordability, but is a subject worthy of report. Tomintoul (talk) 08:20, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Good, I will consider doing that soon. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:38, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Absolutelypuremilk Are you going to create Empty Homes in UK? Meanwhile, I think 'Buy To Leave' should probably be moved to a section within Buy to let. What do you think? Tomintoul (talk) 15:45, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I will see how busy I am in the next few weeks, feel free to start it in your sandbox if you wish. Yes that would be fine with me. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 16:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Absolutelypuremilk In advance of 'Empty homes' being created as an article in its own right, I think it should be a section in Housing in the United Kingdom as it is not really anything to do with affordability. Tomintoul (talk) 16:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

NPOV

Most glaringly, the section on planning restrictions reflects an entirely anti-planning restrictions POV. No balance is given to either opposing views that planning restrictions are not the problem, or if that's not a reasonable kind of balance, to the argument that planning restrictions are worth the cost. Since planning restrictions continue to exist, surely not everyone is on the same side of this.--Samuel J. Howard (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

You will note I have done a lot of work on this article to update, improve and make neutral. I agree more is required. Tomintoul (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

@Tomintoul and Samuel J. Howard: There is still a POV tag on this article. Is any bias still apparent in the article today? Jarble (talk) 18:12, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Bubble

Categorization of the article as being about a "bubble" and inclusion of the Bubble template (and inclusion of the article on the bubble template) seems to be a NPOV issue. The word "bubble" isn't actually in the article text. And the existence of a UK housing bubble is disputed[1][2][3][4].--Jahaza (talk) 15:18, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the 'Bubble' business relates to a very old version of the article, which has been transformed.Tomintoul (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Tomintoul, OK if I go ahead and remove those items then?--Jahaza (talk) 15:25, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Jahaza Thanks. I've already done some and so have you.Tomintoul (talk) 15:34, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Rented homes

Article is heavily skewed towards owner-occupiers. I have started a section on 'Rented homes', but this requires considerable expansion.Tomintoul (talk) 10:38, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Large removal of text

Sport and politics, you removed a large chunk of sourced text saying "clean up and removal". Could you explain the reasoning for the removal of this content? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 15:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Large swathes of information has no source, or a source which is not allowed. Information cannot be added without a source. Information cannot be used to further a POV, and information must be more than nice to have, it must be relevant and encyclopedic. If you can justify the un-sourced, and unverified text with reliable, and acceptable sources, please do so. Un-sourced information must though be removed. The Daily Mail is not allowed to be used on Wikipedia for example.

The article was slated as a political statement that house prices going up against wages was bad. It was slanted so that everyone must own a home. It was slanted that people buying properties that the do not live in was bad. It also made out that taxes and costs were fixed at the price when it was added to the article.

The information on tax and costs were subjective, for example why is it written in a way that mortgage rate relief is an inherently bad thing.

Bias in this article needs removing and removals have undertaken, along with the changes in wording, such as removing phrasing "bug jumps" and "thus people were forced to spend", both of which are POV pushing language. This article needs further clean up, and balancing. Reports, politicians and pressure groups used in this article cannot be cherry-picked to give a biased POV. This article must be written from a neutral POV with reliable and relevant sourced information. Wikipedia cannot be allowed to devolve in to a political soapbox.

I hope this answers the above. Sport and politics (talk) 16:15, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Completely agree on removal of unsourced content - happy for you to do that. The following content however:

Possible solutions

Replacing council tax

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested replacing the current Council tax system based on bands of house prices with a system which would mean the tax was more closely related to property prices. This would increase taxes on the highest priced properties and decrease them for the lowest. They claim it would also have the effect of reducing house price volatility.

Land value tax is a proposed replacement for council tax, supported in principle by London mayor Sadiq Khan, which would be based entirely on land (i.e. location) value and not on the value of buildings built on a piece of land or improvements made. It would therefore not penalise improvements to buildings, including the addition of more living space, and would reduce house prices and house price volatility. Also, as it would raise a large amount of revenue, it could be used to fund new social housing construction.

Why is only Land Value Tax listed, why are there no other alternatives listed, or for that matter having other taxes, or having no taxes at all included, in the section. Why are the JRF being used as a source, and as the only source. Why is this not explained, and why are there no other organisations listed. Why is more social housing touted in the section, without any explanation or other types of house building included. The phrase "house price volatility" is also a confusing statement, there is also a slant that this is a bad thing. This needs to be explained, and there needs to be some neutrality, why is reduction a good thing, why are market forces being allowed to act in this way not a good thing. This is one sided and poorly written giving too much weight to the narrow information presented above. Sport and politics (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

The Daily Telegraph article was unresearched propaganda as it only show what the tax liabilities would be,not the net effect on the house incomes of ordinary working families.

I provided research that shows the re-distributional concequences of a LVT, and precisely how they effect housing affordabilty for typical working UK households. Yet that was deleted. Why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:5EB8:8C00:E90F:745F:9F97:7481 (talk) 12:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the DT article was framed in a party political sense - it was talking about a specific example of imagined Labour policy and is probably undue for this article.

Which research are you talking about? I removed some content that was supported by blogs, which are not reliable sources. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 17:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Reducing international investment demand

In 2015, the Bow Group, a conservative think-tank, produced a report suggesting a reduction in international investment demand of property. The report proposed limiting foreign residents to the purchase of single new-build properties, with penalties if sold within five years. In 2016, London mayor Sadiq Khan launched an inquiry into housing costs in the city, also highlighting the impact of foreign investment.

Why the Bow Group, what is their importance on this issue. Why are there no other organisations used as a source. Why is the Bow Group importance not explained. This is a form of synthesis, as it take a report on an issue, in this case ownership by non-UK nationals, places it in this article, and makes out that that is having an affect. This is synthesis. It could simply be an immigration rule. There is nothing here backing up the assertion of one being related to the other. It is nothing more than synthesis, and its inclusion is POV pushing that one does affect the other. Sport and politics (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Second home ownership

The government set up a £60 million fund to help councils deal with high levels of second home ownership. In 2016, a referendum in St Ives, Cornwall found 83.2% of voters in favour of new housing projects being reserved for full-time residents, as many tourists frequent the area and Cornwall is popular for second home and vacation property ownership.

This is a single local authority area, and should not be given undue weight as it is being given by being included as it is such. This gives an impression that this endemic across the whole country, and is a reflection of the country as a whole. This information belongs in an article on St Ives, and that's about it. Potentially it could be included as part of an article on second home-ownership. But second home ownership covers everyone who owns two homes, or more. This is but-to-let landlords- people who have inherited a property, people who are living in one house while building a second. People who own holiday lets, and so on and so on. This section gives an impression second home ownership is people buying a house in a part of the country visiting it one week of the year, and abandoning it fifty-one weeks of the year. This is a terrible section. Sport and politics (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

The additions do not address the synthesis being implied here, that Second home ownership is related to housing affordability. This has not been demonstrated by the text or the sources provided. A government inquiry is a political issue, this does not address anything but the politics of the issue. More is needed. Sport and politics (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Buy-to-let tax changes

From April 2016, a Stamp Duty surcharge of three per cent of the purchase price was required for those buying to let. From April 2017, buy-to-let mortgage interest payments will have higher rates of income tax relief phased out by the government. Although, companies would not be affected by the new rules.

is well sourced (apart from the Land Value Tax stuff, but there are plenty of references in the relevant article which I am happy to move across if you wish). I'm not sure how it is POV? Could you explain further? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

This is a tax issue, not a housing affordability issue. The way it is worded is not related to the article currently worded. It is synthesis. IT is information on the tax of buy-to-let, in an article on affordability of housing in the UK, being used to imply that one affects the other. There is not substance to this claim and it is not supported by the text or the sources. As it is synthesis, and therefor POV, it is a not for this article unless that issue is rectified. Sport and politics (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

References

Merge of Housing in Wales into this article

This article is a catch all for the United Kingdom and this article should contain the whole of the UK and a separate wales article is superfluous. Sport and politics (talk) 16:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I would support that. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:37, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Oppose on the grounds that housing is broader than affordability of housing, and that even if a merge were considered a better target would be Housing in the United Kingdom, noting that Housing in England also redirects there. Klbrain (talk) 05:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Oppose The article discuss mostly Wales specific issues such as the language difference and action taken in Wales related to the housing problems. This wouldn’t fit well into either of the targets mentioned. I do however approve of adding a short summary similar to the London section on this page. Trialpears (talk) 16:47, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Closing, given the uncontested opposition. Klbrain (talk) 20:20, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Continuing issues of lack of neutrality

Each attempt at making the article more neutral seems to be countered by another move taking it back to a particular perspective. Tomintoul (talk) 09:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Could you expand on which content you think is causing the problem? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:37, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Absolutelypuremilk The recent minor edit wars in relation to Land Value Tax is a perfect example. All negative comment in relation to LVT has been deleted and only positive comment remains – this section and much of the whole article has a very left-wing bias. Tomintoul (talk) 16:30, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I haven't seen any general negative comments in relation to LVT. The Telegraph article which was removed referred to a claim by a political party that an LVT would cost each family £10k. This didn't seem particularly notable for this article. If you can find anything more general on LVT, then feel free to add it. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 17:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The text of the Telegraph article is as follows:

"Replacing council tax with a land value tax would "price people out of their own homes" by charging thousands of families more than £10,000 per year, it has been claimed. Homeowners in council tax band D properties, who currently pay an average of £1,671, would see an average rise of £717 to £2,388 - up 43 per cent, according to a document prepared by the Labour Land Campaign (LLC). It suggests charging as much as £96,534 per year for a three-bedroom home in the richest part of London. B and D homes in wealthy parts of Manchester would pay £11,239 per year and in Bristol £9,567. The figures will reignite the debate over Labour's tax and spend policies as the country prepares to go to the polls in tomorrow's local elections. The tax would hit London and the South East the most, putting lower income households and people who bought their ex-council houses at a discount under the right-to-buy scheme at risk, a minister warns today."

I think it's very disingenuous to present this as a reasonable criticism of LVT - we should not be introducing false balance when the sources clearly do not support it. Wikipedia is not the place to reproduce party political comments for the sake of it. I will ask for a third opinion here. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 10:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

It is a report of what other commentators are saying; there is no claim that it is reasonable or otherwise.Tomintoul (talk) 11:01, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Just a note here that @Number 57: supported the removal of the Telegraph content, so there seems to be consensus against inclusion. I haven't seen any such consensus against inclusion of the "perfect tax" description. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 17:06, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that just two editors agreeing amounts to consensus – there has been very little debate. Surely you can see that an unchallenged entry referring to a 'perfect tax' is not neutral POV. This article has historically been riven with POV issues and I have made some attempts to achieve neutrality but it is now going backwards. I'm beginning to wonder if the whole article should be nominated for deletion. Tomintoul (talk) 15:13, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

I think we should reflect what the sources say. The Telegraph article is the only one I have seen which is negative about an LVT. If you think there are others, feel free to add them to the article. We should not try and introduce false balance when that is not what the sources are saying. Feel free to ask for a WP:Third opinion or start an RFC. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 15:49, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

At the moment, it's just the two us showing much interest in editing this article, so I suggest that until we get significant further input we compromise by leaving the section as it is at the moment i.e. no Telegraph, no 'perfect tax'.Tomintoul (talk) 08:30, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Third opinion

Response to third opinion request:

Whether the comments about the subject are positive or negative, they shouldn't be in the article if there are no reliable sources to back them up. (SN: Absolutelypuremilk, when you add an entry to WP:3O, sign the entry with five tildes (~~~~~), not four; so that your username won't show.) Erpert blah, blah, blah... 15:53, 20 June 2018 (UTC)