Archive for housing
Private renting up for the first time in a century
New figures from the ONS today confirm that private renting is on the increase: Over the last century, the structure of home ownership in England and Wales has changed. Policies and economic developments have transformed the tenure structure over the century from a largely renting to an owner occupier population. The last decade however has [...]
The rise of the private renters continues
Back in the summer I wrote about how: You can fight through a bulging email folder of press releases from politicians wanting to make mortgages easier, cheaper, safer and more numerous before you find one that talks about tackling any of the issues private renters face… It is notable that the rising trend of private [...]
Letter from the Leader: We need to think big
Another week, another email from Nick Clegg. Last week, having received the third email in this series once again on a Sunday, I asked: Sunday. Really? The timing of these emails doesn’t fit what I know about the email reading habits of Liberal Democrat members, which would suggest this is far from the best time [...]
Housing policy: Lib Dems secure £300m for affordable homes
Time to put my blogging where my mouth is about today’s announcements: For more details of the announcements, see the official news release – which includes: New legislation for Government guarantees of up to £40 billion worth of major infrastructure projects and up to £10 billion of new homes. The Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill will include [...]
Lib Dems publish plan for 300,000 homes to be built a year
I’ve talked a few times about how housing has become an increasingly important policy in the rhetoric of Liberal Democrat ministers (see Danny Alexander set to up the ante on anti-Tory rhetoric and housing and Vince Cable on “one of the great acts of economic vandalism in modern times”). Whether or not that rhetoric will produce policy [...]
Danny Alexander set to up the ante on anti-Tory rhetoric and housing
One of the best speeches given by a Liberal Democrat Cabinet Member in the last year was Danny Alexander’s to the GMB conference. It was not only a good speech, it went down well with a tough audience that disagrees strongly with many things the government is doing. As I wrote at the time: There [...]
Housing: the IPPR’s answer
Over the last week I’ve highlighted how the Britain’s love of home ownership is not based on any evidence that high home ownership brings economic success (if anything, the opposite is true), that the proportion of people living in private rented accommodation is on a long-term rise and that changes in property prices in Britain are [...]
This doesn’t look like a rebalancing housing market to me
Continuing this week’s mini-housing theme, here are the latest changes in house prices published this week by the Office of National Statistics:
Graph reproduced courtesy of the Open Government Licence.
* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win A...
The rise of the private renters
On Wednesday I returned to the theme of how private renters get short shrift in British politics. You can fight through a bulging email folder of press releases from politicians wanting to make mortgages easier, cheaper, safer and more numerous before you find one that talks about tackling any of the issues private renters face. This [...]
Is a high home ownership rate a sign of a successful country?
People who rent in the private sector get short shrift in British politics. Renting is rarely talked about and when it is, it is almost always in the context of it being seen as inferior to owner-occupation. It is as if a private renter is simply someone who has not been successful or lucky enough [...]
