Housing shortage

[cromwell]

So there is a housing shortage, we're told.
OK so do we remedy it by building lots and lots more houses? That's what is happening.
But we are also told that the biggest shortage is "affordable" housing; the sort a first time buyer would need.

And here I think we have a problem. Because what is an affordable house? Building land is expensive. Bricks are expensive. Lots of houses have been built and are being built around here, but not all are being sold.

The first house I owned was a semi bought for £17,750 in 1983. At the time I was earning about £6,000, so the house was roughly 3 times my income. Today those houses sell for about £140,000. So today's 20 something would have to be earning £45k plus for their mortgage to be 3 times their income. Around here, no chance. Jobs like that for 20 odd year olds don't exist.
Even terraces now sell for £70 - 80,0000 upwards.

So how are these affordable houses going to be made available? You can build as many houses as you like but people have to have the money to buy them!

[Kaz]

Oh how strange, I have just this minute posted on a thread on Homes and Gardens, talking to Jo about how my first house in '79 cost £19,950 Houses were affordable in those days, now as you say it is almost impossible especially for younger people, certainly those who are single and only one income - like my son He is still saving, despite me giving him a leg up (I gave him a lump sum out of my inheritance from my parents), prices are still out of reach He has a good job working in IT for Spelthorne Council but house prices in Staines are terribly high!

[Workingman]

I have often wondered why we do not build more pre-fab housing, and the only reasons I can come up with are our experience with the post-war types we built here in the UK and the way the mortgage market works.

In Saudi I lived in an American designed pre-fab and it was brilliant. It was a pod system where if the layout was to be changed, or anther bedroom needed, a wall was removed and another pod attached. The services were already built in so all that was need was for them to be hooked up and that was that.

Also, watching Grand Designs the other week, a couple were building a pre-fab shipped in from Finland. We were told that the majority of houses built in Scandinavia are pre-fab and have been for decades.

I think that saying a new development has to have x many "affordable homes" are weasel words designed to sweeten the application process.

[Kaz]

I think pre-fabs are great, one of my dad's aunties lived in one in the 60s and 70s, it had been built to last only a few years after the war but was still liveable

Frank one of my favourite Grand Designs was the Huff (Hoff?) House, the German one, it was gorgeous and the way it went up so quickly was quite spectacular

[cromwell]

Oh - like "My Flat-pack home"?
I remember the prefabs! I think the last of them around here went in the early 70's.

[Kaz]

They lasted about 25/30 years in the end, and those Huff House type ones will last longer

I didn't see My Flap-pack Home but it sounds similar

[Workingman]

I didn't see My Flat-pack Home either, but I did see an item where a three story housing complex of flats was put up in a Scandinavian city in a few weeks. It was a brownfield site, so utility services we close by.

They might not be places to make a home for life in, but as affordable starter homes, or cheap rental homes, they were ideal.

[cromwell]

There are lots of empty shops in town high streets now. With on-line shopping and our local authority's love affair with big supermarket chains, those shops are probably gone for good.
So why not use some of them for housing? Converting them should be quick enough.

[saundra]

i watch my flat pack home on sky
love it homes built in weeks
problem is i think here in the uk we like bricks and mortar
i loved the huff homes kaz and the germans are super effecient as well as a team they work together

[Workingman]

problem is i think here in the uk we like bricks and mortar

Good point.