Intermediate housing

Shared ownership is not a good option unless it is properly regulated. The last one I looked at (in Deptford) was charging over £200 a month for service charges. The best way to help people feel more secure would be to introduce rental systems like the ones people have in Germany and the Netherlands - once you are in, you're in unless the landlords family want to move in or you cause a lot of trouble as a tenant. When the owner dies, the tenancy gets inherited and the tenant doesn't have to move. If housing is not going to be made genuinely affordable (rent / mortgage at a 30% rate of take home income), which it is not in London, then why not just make renting better?! This would also allow people who want to buy to be able to save up for it. There is no point at all doing still-expensive schemes (shared ownership in Deptford, £600+ mortgage, £300+ monthly household bills, £220 service charge for a studio flat) if rent costs do not allow people to save up to buy these places.

Pocket Homes has the best model, although still too expensive and a bit too small (plus some seem to use Secure by Design rules and getting into the flats feels like entering a prison). Also self-build, co-housing needs looking at. These are fantastic models which offer opportunity for more communal outdoors space. and mutual neighbour / community support.

Shared ownership is a poor halfway house. What needs to happen is what Pocket Homes do - homes for sale are only allowed for sale to people who are going to live in them - this gets checked on regularly. This means that already-rich landlords cannot purchase them and charge high rents. Homes would cease to be commodities and have to be homes. Any rental homes should be council housing / key worker housing /be genuinely affordable rents. We all know what's needed - bold actions and landlord regulation. This is another survey, about another halfway measure that is not really going to help anyone.

Thank you for this forum.  I am a recently graduated nurse due to be evicted from my home by my Charity landlord next week on the 23rd when the government COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.  This, after actually opting-in to care for COVID-19 patients.  I am grateful for the opportunity of an education, yet stressed as to where I will go.

Intermediate housing definitely will play its important part in housing crisis specially in central London and surroundings. Rent need to keep with people's income level so that they can live in a balance way that they are not going on debt or under poverty. Now a day, rent in private housing sector is too high and needed to put down such a level that people can living in their home happily and can save to buy their home at the end.

Our Council Leader here in Ealing has a flat for essential workers despite earning ££££££££ and having his mother in law living there, and she is hardly an essential worker (and he has a big house in the borough elsewhere).   Sticky fingers.   

If you do give subsidised housing to an essential worker, what happens if they leave that job?   Do you end up with 'tied housing' like in the past ? where if you got made redundant/sacked, you became homeless?   

I think it's important that any shared ownership scheme has provisions to avoid the property being sold on and eventually ending up as a buy to let - I see this as a huge problem for London - too much of the property is in the hands of too few people

Im not sure I understand why anyone would encourage shared ownership with a private company who retains the freehold? 'Shared ownership' (renamed 'Intermediate housing'?) doesn't work as a concept as prices are driven by demand and supply. This system simply gives more money and more ownership to wealthy landlords.

Capping the profit property developers and landlords can make (and reinvesting into communities) and encouraging community house building cooperatives could be a better solution - empower the people who chose to call this city their home.

Alternatively, given the cost of borrowing is so cheap at the moment, public investment in good quality social housing would make a greater difference than the strange concept of shared owership.

If housing is in short supply in the capital, perhaps we could prioritise housing for key workers, artists and creative industry?

Much as I understand the need for affordable housing it will never happen while we have rich building companies being given all the contracts and reducing the number of buildings which will be let at a reasonable/affordable rent.  The other problem faced here in Romford is the saturation on new builds that will bring major problems regarding pollution, and the inability of the infrastructure to cope. Roads around Rush Green were often at a standstill prior to lockdown particularly during rush hour and when Queens hospital appointments were due! As things return to normal the roads are already getting overcrowded and with the impending massive building programme around here in the near future the Mayor needs to take another look at what his pressure to build more housing is going to do here before it is too late. A green area within the hospital boundaries is going to become housing instead of a pleasant nature rich area for the staff and patients to have a chance to chill out. I have not seen so many butterflies and insects since the park was taken from us to become a hospital and that enabled rich builders who could then replace the old hospital, Oldchurch, with high rise flats. 

Housing should be treated as a source of social utility not private investment. That it has been used in the latter way is a key component of the crisis that we are now in, In other words decent housing should be recognised as a human right. It is not an artefact  which particular factions of the population should be awarded as a privilege. What is a key worker ? In reality the working class operates within the social division of labour as an interdependent whole. The notion of "key worker" amounts to a revamp of the distinction between "deserving" and "undeserving". What is needed is council housing built in house by local authorities at rents which are set according to the actual levels of people's income. Fictions like the "London Living Rent" have to be regarded  as an insult to the English Language. and abandoned. The right to buy also has to go.It is a principle cause of the present crisis. It is about time that the left was prepared to assert that there is nothing wrong with renting a property from your local authority. It is socially beneficial in a way that.the possessive individualist dream of a private property owning democracy is not. Of course to do this requires local councilors with a grasp of civic responsibity, not people who are prepared to do deals with private property consortia. To start with local councilors should take time out  to read and take lessons from John Boughton's "Municipal dreams : the rise and fall of council housing" (2018) together with the author's blog of the same name. Also it is about time that controls were enforced upon the private housing sector such that its rents and conditions of tenure became comparable to those which are, just about, still available to council tenants. It is straightforward political intervention that is needed, not the managerialism which is so characteristic of the Mayor's approach

All families allowed to buy only 1 house, affordable home. Not allowed to rent the whole property out. Must live in the property. Overseas buyers not allowed, second home not allowed ( buy under affordable home), house prices capped, zone 3/4 250k(3 bedrooms), zone 2 350k(3 bedrooms). Then automatically, the rental market will cool down. Then first time buyer like myself could afford to buy. There are so many ways the councils and the government can help its citizens but they don't do what is right. Demand is high but supply is limited, and yet first time buyers cannot get a home. There are many ideas and methods that can solve the issue but again, everyone must think alike. We live in a society where money is given more importance. The more money you can get from your property, the better ( very sad state indeed). That is why you find people buying up property like hot cakes! Each time a person buys more than one property (per family), then the supply gets even lesser. This is the issue. 

As housing costs in London are subject to basic laws of supply and demand, is enough being done to imaginatively encourage the private sector to provide more accommodation to increase supply in London? Expanding the rent a room allowance significantly would be one incentive. Imposing a limit on foreign ownership of London housing should be analysed. Overseas, the London residential market is seen as an asset class to invest in, but does this reduce the availability of housing to those who live and work in the capital? Switzerland restricts the sale of second homes to foreigners.

Is enough being done to encourage private enterprise to increase housing supply with clever tax incentives.  To build and expand private stock for rental use? Affordable housing is only one aspect of a bigger picture of needing to increase overall supply in London at every single opportunity and at every level.

90,000 is not affordable. Im born in London and due to ill helth living on benefits which dp not cover my rent with a private landlord.

We and those on real (low) income need serious assistance. 

It seems such a shame that the rental prices are so much more than the amount to pay off a mortgage. Help is needed in making the deposits affordable. Why did mortgage companies allow people to get mortgages for Buy to Let. This meant that people, who had money, could buy multiple properties for renting to increase their pensions etc and take off affordable places to live for those first time buyers.I believe that people look after properties better when they own or part-own them.