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Homes for Londoners first
One idea to increase the number of homes available to people in London is to ensure that all new homes worth up to £350,000 are available to Londoners first, ahead of overseas buyers.
What do you think of this idea? How effective do you think it would be?
Summary
On 5 February 2018, the Mayor announced a landmark step towards offering ‘first dibs’ on new homes exclusively to Londoners and UK-based buyers: https://www.london.gov.uk/city-hall-blog/mayor-reveals-landmark-step-off...
48 Comments
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any property thats has been empty for more than 12 months without a major renovation in place should be forfeited and sold to a london resident in the area for a fraction of its market value.
if we utilised the empty properties in london the prices would be affordable and foreign investors woudnt buy a property to lose money instead of buying them leaving them empty
Forfeiture of private property is a breach of human rights.
100% support suggestion by Paul Bowers.
We could be here all day debating "human rights". In my view, so-called human rights have gone well over the top, far beyond reason.
Yes. Compulsory purchase at minimal price.
Great idea. And lets go one step further and only allow properties to be bought an 'natural person' (as the term goes) who has paid council tax and amenities and voted in local elections for 5 years or more. Basically someone actually living in the UK.
What about ensuring that all homes in London are available to Londoners first! A house is for living not investing.
There are various options the governments can do:
- Perhaps abolish STAMP duty for first houses and double the current values for second+ houses.
- Rental income should be considered personal income and should be taxed as such. Especially if the owner is an entity based abroad.
Homes for Londoners means only Londoners can rent/buy them. Simple. You can't have a London flat unless you're a UK citizen or long-term resident with your taxes registered in the UK and your bank statements going to a UK address.
In Paris after the war it was illegal to have housing left unoccupied. Whilst the majority of Londoners, would not consider London to resemble post-war Paris, those that are homeless/itinerant/migrant/refugee, fight personal wars daily.
It is a very difficult and complex issue.
Should one of the mansions on Bishop's Lane be rented out to a local Londoner by law, or should it be left empty for years, untill the right 'buyer' comes along? I do not think it is correct to meddle in the housing market in such a way.
Therefore there has to be a new distinction between rented housing and housing for sale. Rented housing must absolutely be there to provide housing for Londoners. Housing that is for sale and occupancy by the owner of the property should be left to market forces.
We need somewhere to live. We can't have foreign buyers leaving our housing empty, whether it is to let or to buy. If they can't leave rental property vacant, they will just try to sell it. Then the rental prices will get even worse because there will be fewer places to rent.
Housing is left to market forces in the USA and there are huge tent cities, people sleep in sewers and vast numbers sleep on the streets. I don't think we should go that way.
If a mansion is left empty for years, then something must be done about that. Housing is a fundamental right, not a luxury commodity. 'Market forces' have led to a situation where properties are empty, while people are sleeping rough.
Probably a good idea - tho the abolition of private property is a better one.
In practice this would cause lots of problems and probably would make things worse. For example:
1. If you have a property for sale worth £325,000 you would put the price up to £350,000 to access a bigger pool of purchasers. The prices of properties near to but currently below the level set would all inflate. This will distort the market and not in a good way.
2. Who is a Londoner? Who is an overseas buyer? Does that mean that if someone born and bred in London went to live in Manchester for a few years they would not be allowed to buy a house in their home town of London when they want to come back. If Manchester is OK what if a Londoner went to work abroad for a while does this now make them an overseas buyer and not a Londoner when they want to come home? Do we really want Londoners to be unable to develop their skills and careers working for a while in other countries for fear of being prohibited from buying a place to live on their return?
3.Alternatively if you do manage to buy a property below the magic £350,000 does this mean you can never sell it and have to rent it if ever you plan to be away for a long time.
Not a good idea too complicated in reality. Much higher council tax for homes unoccupied for say greater than 6 months a year would be much easier. Whether the owner is foreign or not is not the issue - whether the property is occupied is.
I believe that any house and flat bought for investment should be required to be income-earning. occupied as a residential property and its rental income should be taxed and that tax should benefit the Local Authority that the property is based in. In this way, the community as a whole would benefit and the owner will still realise an improvement in the value of the property as an investment. Furthermore, I believe it is essential that all property owners should be required to appoint a Managing Agent and obtain a Property Maintenance Insurance Policy to maintain the property in good standing and that the Managing Agent and Property Maintenance Policy should be registered with the Local Authority. The Local Authority should be permitted to require the Managing Agent to undertake repairs to the property if it became obvious that the property is not being maitained properly.
This idea is mad. Applying a subjective test of one person's "worth" over another to whether they are allowed to do something (e.g. buy a house) is totally wrong. "You're not from round here" taken to the extreme.
"Available first" means little, if not nothing. Such a rule could be circumnavigated easily with a £350,001 property, or, an un-publicised, short "local sale" period.
"Londoners" is also totally ludicrous: do you have to live here already (so I need to prove residency before I can buy a house...)? Do you have to have a job in London (yeh, no one without a job is worth anything in London, hey)? Do you have to provided a family tree establishing your true 'Bow-Bells' lineage? London is an ever-changing global city, with people moving here regularly, and no one group represents it, nor should that group have primacy over affordable property sales.
If, truly, #LondonIsOpen then we cannot circle the wagons and deny non "Londoners" quite basic privileges.
We cannot have endless open-door immigration because it is destroying our housing market. We wouldn't be having this discussion if we did not have a problem with excessive demand for housing. We need to limit it in some way. So yes priority should go to those who have been living here a long time. That's fair. Otherwise it just becomes a free-for-all and the rich get richer and the poor lose out.
And who is the Londoner? Someone with "proof of address" what can anyone get? Or British citizen?
I like the principle but there are flaws to the problem.
1. Very very few properties in London go on the market now for less than £350,000
2. Determining who counts as a Londoner when the majority of people who have made the city their home are born elsewhere.
I don't know enough to suggest the mechanics of how to do it - I want to block mansions and blocks of flats being bought up by oligarchs taking much-needed money out of their countries corruptly - mainly but not only Russia, Saudi and neighbours, Africa - taking property and putting up prices for the little people here.
I believe that people not resident in the UK should not be allowed to buy property here. Property in London and increasingly in other cities is being used as a bank account for foreign nationals, not as a home. There are other countries where non-residents cannot buy property. It is driving up the price of property to ridiculous levels.
The housing crisis is about a lack of homes in London for people to live in. This policy focuses on home-ownership, rather than the fundamentals of having somewhere to live. Instead the focus should be:
1. Increasing the number of homes
2. Decreasing the number of residential properties not being used as homes (eg holiday rentals & properties sitting empty for investment reasons)
Yes, and perhaps this should apply to ALL areas, not just London. I recall how Wales, the West Country and some other rural villages have been made into ghost towns in the winter months because they have been purchased as second homes; locals cannot afford to buy them because the prices have been pushed up by wealthier people buying the p[properties.
Where in London can you buy a property for three hundred and fifty grand?
Property developers are not charitable organizations, they invest significant sums of money to create properties for sale, whether these go to social landlords or the private market.
the obscene cost of property is not the fault of foreign investors but a product of our own greed; we believe that all property must be owned and must keep on increasing in value. in old money a mortgage could only be raised at 3 times your annual salary, this is then affordable and the market sustainable.
it would however lead to market prices increasing only in line with wage inflation, are we ready for that to happen or are we too greedy and going to view property as investment opportunities.
Thanks everyone for sharing your views. We'll pass these on to our policy team.
Quite a few of you are supportive of the idea. What do you like about it. Who do you think this will help?
Talk London
A quarter of all properties in London or almost 800K, represents social housing thus already affordable. There is also financial support (Housing benefit) to help people meet the cost of their private rent (£260 per week for 1 bed).
Almost half of the social houses are occupied by 1 resident and a quarter of them have 2 residents (70% in total). Less than 800K persons from a population of 9M in London occupy two thirds of all social houses. Of these 60% are economically inactive (300 – 400K) and the remainder are retired, full-time carers, long-term sick or disabled. Relatively few social houses are actually occupied by families with children.
As part of the wider discussion I would like to understand the criteria of awarding 200 – 250K social houses to a population of 300 – 400K who are economically inactive without being retired or having a health issue. To put things into context, there are less than 7K new affordable homes being built in London per year.
Personally I do not think that the existing stock is used efficiently at all and new builds will not solve a deeper problem if anything it will exacerbate it.
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/nov/18/who-lives-41-mil...
so how do you differentiate between someone whos a londoner and who is not? wont work the one whos not will just register here anyway or get someone to do it for them
how many homes in central London cost £350K? None. It's either social cleansing, forcing people to move away, or meaningless.
As others have said, the important thing is to have the homes lived in. For reasons given below it would be difficult to prioritise Londoners over others.
Perhaps the value should be aligned with the Help to Buy (London) limit of £600,000.
I think an effort should be made to ensure that there aren't tonnes of empty 'holiday' homes in London. An effort should be made to ensure homes are owned by those who will actually live in them. This would involve not selling off tonnes of property to overseas buyers. Greater protection of property would be good to see. Essentially these things just drive up prices for those who live here
I am forced to work in London but sleep outside London as I can not afford to rent anything in London for my family.
I feel Londoner but as per sleeping location I am considered as not living in London. This I consider as clear discrimination as I live outside London by force not by choice. This should be taken unto account in the new housing strategy to give the same chances for those who live in London (as they can now afford it) and those who work in London and are forced to live (sleep) outside London).
Majority of new built houses (80-90%) in London should be for first time buyers and house who do not own any other house. Those who own a house in UK, companies (speculating on market) foreign investors, those who do not live/work in London should not have right to buy in London unless they are willing to rent the house/flat to social housing organisations for low rent, regulated and long term (e.g, 20 -30 years) which will then rent it to social housing tenants.
London should take example from Geneva and other Swiss cities where only residents are allowed to buy. You have to be a residence permit holder to acquire any property in Geneva or Zurich f,ex.
London is awash with foreign buyers who are just parking money , often of undeclared and illicitly gained provenance.
This is what has pushed prices up and born and bred Londoners out of their home city.
Properties belonging to opaque offshore structures should become fully transparent and physical beneficial owners disclosed ,fully taxed, or otherwise seized and auctioned to Londoners only.
A quarter of all properties in London or almost 800K, represents social housing thus already affordable. There is also financial support (Housing benefit) to help people meet the cost of their private rent (£260 per week for 1 bed).
Almost half of the social houses are occupied by 1 resident and a quarter of them have 2 residents (70% in total). Less than 800K persons from a population of 9M in London occupy two thirds of all social houses. Of these 60% are economically inactive (300 – 400K) and the remainder are retired, full-time carers, long-term sick or disabled. Relatively few social houses are actually occupied by families with children.
As part of the wider discussion I would like to understand the criteria of awarding 200 – 250K social houses to a population of 300 – 400K who are economically inactive without being retired or having a health issue. To put things into context, there are less than 7K new affordable homes being built in London per year.
Personally I do not think that the existing stock is used efficiently at all and new builds will not solve a deeper problem if anything it will exacerbate it.
https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/nov/18/who-lives-41-mil...
New homes represent c1% of the total London housing stock. There were less than 47K built in 2016 and the prediction is that much less will be built in the future due to the economical uncertainty. With how things are going, the developers may give them up very cheaply anyway, without government intervention.
There are already thousands of properties worth less than £350,000 in London (4K listed on Rightmove) but it does not mean that anybody will actually buy them, most of them flats, almost none houses. Whoever can afford to rent in Central London will never move to a 1-2 bed flat in Enfield or Thamesmead or even some parts of East London for the sake of owning a flat worth £350,000. If they have a family they would move out of London. Family homes should be made affordable.
The focus should be on existing stock and not only on overseas buyers. Many UK companies (including private pension funds) invest in property as well. I don't think there is a clear evidence on number of empty properties, by that I mean occupied less than 6 months per year.
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