By Press Release
Drinking, dancing and making merry during lockdowns is the least of the Tories’ worries. By the time we get to the election next year, 1.64 million fixed term mortgages are due to expire. Can you imagine how those people will feel about Rishi’s government?
In the 70s, only one person needed to work to raise a family, usually Dad. Now even with two working, it’s a struggle. My mortgage deal expired recently, and the new monthly payment tripled. True, I’d been on a very low fixed rate and thankfully overpaid, but not everyone is so lucky. In 1989 when interest rates soared – also under the Tories – I almost lost my house. That’s not something you forget. I couldn’t think of much else all day, and struggled to sleep at night. Tens of thousands of homes were repossessed; prices fell as a flood of properties hit the market; ‘handing back the keys’ became commonplace.
In the 60s, three million new homes were built; since 2010, they’ve managed just 1.3 million. Essentially, the government has abandoned house building to the private sector. I once did a one-off development which included six affordable homes. They were a condition of our planning consent, and once built, they had to be sold to a housing association at half their market value. The presence of social housing can lower values, so, unwilling to devalue their posh properties, some developers build their affordable housing elsewhere.
Property developers need nerves of steel. First, they borrow huge sums to buy the land and then spend years to-ing and fro-ing with planners; nothing’s ever rushed. We bought our development with planning consent already in place, so skipped years of delays. The land cost a fortune, and still it had problems with things like surface water and highways. We paid for a new road, pavements, street lighting, electricity and gas connections. Sorting that lot out and gifting it to the authorities was a slow and expensive process.
The law makes developers build affordable homes for nothing and they still pay tax if they make a profit. What do you mean ‘if’ you say? Well in my experience, when you gamble on property development, you spend a lot of time praying that house prices continue to rise. If they fall, your project will fail and most likely, that’ll bankrupt you.
Governments are pretty clueless about most things, and they’re hopeless when it comes to solving our housing crisis. Just like developers, private landlords have become the people everyone loves to hate, but having briefly been one of those too, I wouldn’t do it again. Finding good tenants is pure luck, and new legislation punishes landlords. Even the interest paid on your property investment is no longer tax deductible. Having made life tough for landlords, particularly with their new no-fault eviction policy, many landlords are selling up – meaning even fewer homes for rent. On the Island, I hear 10-20 people chase every property that becomes available. It’s hugely stressful for those needing a home and rents have risen sharply. If you’re homeless, turning yourself over to the local authority is almost pointless, which, oddly, is still the way housing need is judged. Points make prizes, or potentially a home. Today, I heard that in some cities, up to 40 per cent of what little housing there is goes to non-British citizens. The government says it ‘may’ change that. They’d best hurry, the wait for a council home can be 14 years!
It can’t be beyond the wit of man to solve this crisis. Unpopular as new building is, we desperately need more homes. If you’re lucky enough to own your own home, remember it was an unwanted new build once!