Rhetoric and reality
Posted: March 16, 2012 Filed under: Private renting 2 CommentsThere is rhetoric. David Cameron kicked off this week by declaring that ‘strong families and stable communities are built from good homes’. Grant Shapps added that ‘we want to help everyone achieve their ambitions, and feel the pride of home ownership’.
And then there is reality. Also this week, a report from Shelter looks at the 3.6 million households who are renting privately. They include one million families with children – double the number five years ago. Some may benefit from the NewBuy Guarantee that Cameron and Shapps launched on Monday, others may make it on to the housing ladder in other ways, some will be renting by choice, but almost three million adults expect to be renting privately for five years or more, including 40 per cent of families with children and a third of those in full-time work. With six- and 12-month tenancies the norm in the private rented sector, where are these strong families to find stable communities, good homes and pride?
BOGOF to BOBOF
Posted: March 15, 2012 Filed under: Right to buy Leave a commentI’m never quite sure about those ‘buy one, get one free’ offers in the supermarket. So can I really believe in ‘buy one, build one free’?
My local Shapps & Cameron hyperstore is offering me a ‘rebooted’ right to buy. Is it like it sounds – a desperate attempt of a 21st century marketeer to rebrand a tired old product from the 1980s as something exciting and new – or is there something in it?
Read the rest of this post on my blog at Inside Housing.
Heard and not seen
Posted: March 14, 2012 Filed under: Mortgages, NHS, Welfare reform Leave a commentA brave and commendable attempt by my local MP to get the government to drop the NHS Bill met with predictable failure in the House of Commons yesterday.
Brave because Andrew George was defying the Lib Dem leadership (not sure how bothered he is by promotion prosepcts though). Commendable because I’d suggest that he was expressing the views of the vast majority of his constituents in west Cornwall (and the country as a whole) and many Lib Dem members. Predictable because this is the way things seem to work at Westminster.
The sound of squawking
Posted: March 13, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages, Right to buy 2 CommentsYesterday should have been a day of triumph for Grant Shapps and the DCLG. Instead it was the day when the chickens began to come home to roost.
The day began so well too. Well-placed leaks in the Sunday and morning papers prepared the ground for TV and radio saturation for the launch of two key parts of the housing revolution promised by David Cameron in his party conference speech and first outlined in last year’s housing strategy: the new build indemnity guarantee and the expansion of the right to buy.
Shaky start
Posted: March 12, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages Leave a commentIf NewBuy really is to be about supporting buyers and new homes rather than just subsidising housebuilders here are 10 questions that need answers.
The launch of the scheme this morning got off to a somewhat shaky start, with many reports claiming (wrongly) that it is for first-time buyers and others (rightly) pointing out the advantages for builders.
Read the rest of this post on my blog at Inside Housing.
Family values
Posted: March 7, 2012 Filed under: Budget, Housing benefit, Mansion tax, Welfare reform Leave a commentAnyone who has followed the debates about housing benefit cuts and the Welfare Reform Bill will probably have been thinking the same as me during the debates this week about the mansion tax and child benefit.
Surely we heard exactly the same arguments about ‘fairness’ and ‘family’ in all the debates over the last year about welfare reform and housing benefit cuts?
Last post
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: Housing benefit, Welfare reform | Tags: government, politics 1 CommentAnd so, having ‘done this to death’, the bedroom tax and the Welfare Reform Bill have passed their final parliamentary hurdle.
The quote came from welfare reform minister Lord Freud as peers debated a final attempt to amend the under-occupation penalty. It may have been accurate in terms of the parliamentary procedure but it will have a hollow ring for landlords and tenants as they spend the next 13 months agonising about how a measure that will cost 670,000 people £14 per week will be implemented.
Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing.
Jules Birch 