Affordability of housing

Supply and Demand are forces beyond the mayors control, but simply concentrating on more supply will be a never ending task that can never achieve affordability in the long term
This will continue until every piece of land capable of being built on is covered with flats, when that is done the low rise ones will be replaced with high-rise
When new housing is built, no further investment is made in amenities, there are very rarely more tube stations, fever libraries GPs or hospitals, and longer queues
When there was not enough water, Thames water built a desalination plant which draws water from the Thames to Supply North East London. There must be an environmental impact building and operating this facility.
The more housing there is the more people there will be. Cars are blamed for pollution. People drive cars. More people, more cars, more pollution, less quality of life. There is affordable housing, an abundance of water and less stretched public services in other parts of the UK.
The Mayors proposed licensing of landlords will add bureaucracy and cost that will ultimately only favour letting agents. Any costs the Mayor imposes will likely be matched by agents who will charge landlords, and use it as a reason to increase rentals again. This is a potential 'own goal' by the Mayor in terms of outcome but if the agenda is about gaining power and control perhaps that is a price the Mayor feels renters have to pay

Genuine question - Why is council tax linked to house value? I rent a room for very high rent (obviously) in a Georgian terrace in Hackney. It's worth a lot of money and falls into the highest council tax band. But this doesn't reflect the reality of the four of us who live there. I earn way less than the average UK salary and don't really get why I pay such high council tax when I don't use more services than the next person and I don't benefit from the high property value. I don't think the old system reflects the reality of the current market - with loads of low paid workers living in houses and paying the mortgage for their landlords on houses that were originally home to one family.

As for general affordability, council housing should never have been sold off. It's still happening isn't it? Despite all the evidence of a growing crisis. Nobody is building truly affordable housing. My partner and I both work full time, over 45 hours a week, in professional jobs. Can't afford a place in London even if we went in with his sister too. Tiny flats starting at £450k aren't affordable. Can't save for a deposit anyway because I spend about 70% of my salary on rent/bills, most of the rest goes on food.

The property developers are getting away with murder. Allowed to buy their way out of social housing obligations and consistently falling short of the targets.

As a country we would benefit from a 2nd and 3rd city that competes with London culturally. This is happening slowly but maybe if schemes were in place to incentivise young entrepreneurs and creatives to start up in a different city, Manchester, Birmingham etc. then things would speed up. More investment in these places and we should definitely move the seat of government outside of London too. Loads of jobs would go with it, it would be fairer for the country and more representative, and the Houses of Parliament are crumbling anyway, with huge repair bill, so now is the perfect time to do it.

No doubt the developers themselves contribute to the unaffordability by using loopholes that allow them to claim that a required proportion of "affordable" housing would make some projects commercially "unviable". This is greedy, cynical and self-perpetuating and should not be allowed.

One of the problems for me is the cost of an 'affordable' home - even on the share to buy / help to buy schemes. I see a £400k figure banded around as affordable for a studio/1 bed flat. I don't consider £400k to be affordable.

Something else I see is a lot of new developments which are available on share to buy / help to buy are 'luxury' developments, often with a gym/roof terrace/ concierge service included at a higher cost. I think there is a demand for non-luxury new developments of similar sized properties without all the added luxury and a smaller cost.

Stamp duty is also a big obstacle for first time buyers (and I imagine 2nd, 3rd and 4th etc time buyers too!). Almost every property price in London is above the stamp duty threshold. I have calculated it will take me another 4+ years just to save the stamp duty amount on top of my deposit... and this is on a property on the share to buy scheme...

Investing in property is popular means of acquiring capital,pushing up prices and leading to profiteering at the expense of potential first time buyers, renters. This is very unfair and skews the market impacting supply and demand. Mortgages should not be given to commercial landlords,only to private owner occupiers. Councils should requisition private property owned by foreigners and left empty for more than a year.

The so called affordable housing is not affordable. I keep being sent shared home ownership property lists showing a three bed house which as 100% share is £800,000. I know the land they are building on was bought cheaply so they are making a huge mark up on the buildings. I would like to know just who is buying these places as they are surprisingly soon occupied but not by locals. Why can't London be like Jersey or Cornwall where you have to have a local connection to buy more affordable lower value older properties which seems to be all bought up by buy to let property companies.

Affordability is a major issue, and one of the worst aspects is that families of locals who were born and raised in London are being broken apart,and our communities are being broken up with it.

There are simply too many people moving to London - whether it's the hipsters who treat each town like an Apple product on a ln update cycle or foreign "investment" where people are using outlet housing stock as a safety deposit box, the problem is the discrepancy between supply and demand. At this stage we can't realistically meet demand, so as well as increasing the number of GENUINELY AFFORDABLE houses, completely curtailing the "luxury" flat market by stopping thslese overpriced developments, we must also cut demand. Make it harder for non-Londoners to move here. Maybe some kind of visa system.
- no more "luxury" developments granted planning permission
- no more foreign investment from China, Russia and the middle East etc.
- restrictions on who can buy property, prioritising London natives, i.e people who have their roots in London (schooled here,family roots or living here from a young age)

In the 1960's and 1970's we had a thriving house building sector producing many more houses than are built today. If you ask any builder or construction professional they will tell you that the biggest single factor in restricting house building is the planning process. This not only results in far fewer houses being built but adds significantly to the cost. Not just in planning department required changes to designs but in the delay and the longer a developer or contractor has to hold the land before he can build the more it costs him and he will inevitably pass on the cost to the consumer.
While I concede the planning department has it's uses, the introduction of planning legislation in the 1970's led to a huge increase in the number of planners and a corresponding reduction in the number of houses built.
It is time that the numbers in this bureaucratic system are reduced to the benefit of both council tax payers and those requiring housing. There should also be time constraints so that developments proceed in months not years.
We need more housing in London and at affordable levels and it is time a critical look was taken at the planners.

Affordability used to be linked to income rather than a number plucked from the air by out of touch politicians. I have been homeless for nine years, either staying with friends and family or living as a guardian. I now earn slightly more than the average wage as a lecturer yet I still can't afford to rent or buy, even on a part rent, part buy scheme.
There are too many investment properties and too many 'luxury' properties.

The real reson that housing is no longer affordable for most people is directly related to the current government's fiscal policy. By attempting to suppress inflation and by reducing the Bank of England interest rate, there are no accounts that would pay the kind of returns that can be got from dealing in property. This has produced a situation where houses have become the new gambling chips and the value of property has risen exponentially. I have no doubt that there are properties all around London which have not seen a tenant in the last 5 years and are being held purely as assets in someone's portfolio.
There is a very big bubble building that is due for a bang before too long. When this happens, the rich will again get richer while the poor will lose all they have.

The affordability of housing in London, like everywhere else, is directly related to its availability. Make more houses available and prices will stabilise and, with inflation, gradually become more affordable. Obviously, more houses means more land to build them on and this is the crux of the problem.
The idea of the Mayor's Office having first choice on the purchase of any land suitable for housing, has merits, as it would allow the Mayor's Office to set conditions for the types and prices of housing to be built there.
Obviously, such a scheme is dependent on land being purchased at a fair price. Either that, or give the Mayor's Office the power to compulsorily purchase the land.