20 COMMENT IS THE BLUE FADING?


Patrick Mooney, housing consultant and news editor of Housing, Management & Maintenance magazine asks – could home ownership, one of the traditional strengths of Conservatives, be turning into a weakness?


Patrick Mooney


I


WHEN ASKED WHICH PARTY WOULD BE BETTER AT HELPING PEOPLE BUY THEIR OWN HOMES, 36% SAID LABOUR AND ONLY 16% SAID THE CONSERVATIVES


WWW.HBDONLINE.CO.UK


n a sign of the times, the Conservative party is now trailling behind Labour as ‘the party of homeownership’ in the eyes of the public, with the opposition’s policies on housing appearing to resonate with far more of the electorate.


When the polling and research organisation Opinium recently asked which party would be better at helping people buy their own homes, 36% said Labour and only 16% chose the Conservatives. This outcome would have been unthinkable in the previous 40 or 50 years. Since 1980 when Margaret Thatcher brought in the Right To Buy (RTB) as a central plank of her property-owning democracy project, more than 2.5 million council homes have been sold to their tenants. The Scottish and Welsh governments both abolished the RTB before 2020, but in England the RTB was extended on a voluntary basis to include housing association tenants in 2019. Mrs Thatcher also deregulated and liberalised the mortgage markets, and from 1980 to 1990 rates of home ownership rose from 55% to 67% of households. The Conservatives’ place as a safe bet for promoting home ownership in the eyes of the electorate appeared to be secure. But since the mid-2000s, rates of home ownership have


fallen back (down to about 64%) while the stock of council housing has declined markedly to approx 7%, as less than one in every 10 former council homes were replaced. Many of the RTB properties have been resold at sinifi cant rice hikes, akin substantial rofi ts for their owners and families. Meanwhile housing associations have continued to grow and they now account for about 10% of all properties, but they usually charge higher rents than councils and some of them appear more commercial in their actions and approach.


SAFETY NET LOST


n another biarre twist, a sinifi cant nuber of ex-council homes have been bought by private landlords who have let them back to the original local authority owners (often for housing homeless families) at vastly in ated rents


This equates to 40% of the ex RTB homes sold in many London boroughs and across large swathes of England. As a result, a vital safety net (in the shape of affordable and secure housing for those in need) can no longer be relied upon and instead the strain on the housing market has been taken up by the private rented sector, which has doubled


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84