*UNDER CONSTRUCTION* Signal-boosting #ToryBritain truths to the nation. Helping YOU be part of the fightback.
From Daily Mirror: First-time buyers have been left high and dry after the number of cheaper homes plunged under the Tories. Just 7,245 new affordable homes to buy were funded by the government last year – down from 20,298 in 2009/10.
From Left Foot Forward: Figures on the state of the home ownership market in England, published by the Office of National Statistics, reveal rapidly worsening affordability problems, putting buying a home beyond most young people.
The affordability ratio calculated by ONS shows that the average house price was 7.9 times average annual earnings in 2017 – the largest ever recorded and more than double that of 1997.
To achieve levels of affordability last seen two decades ago – the average house price in 1997 being 3.5 times average earnings – would require that today’s average earnings would need to double to almost £66,000 annually.
Put another way, average earnings would have to increase by around 3% every year for the next four decades, while the average house price stayed constant at today’s level, for 1997 levels of affordability to be reached once more.
From The Independent: The number of young adults living with their parents has reached an all-time high, with more than a quarter of people aged 20 to 34 still living at home, new figures have revealed.
From Daily Telegraph: A legal loophole which allows developers to build fewer affordable homes has contributed to a big shortfall in such properties, according to new research by Shelter.
Channel 4 News video: Watch Tory member of the London Assembly for West Central, Tony Devenish, literally claim that new blocks of housing being bought up en masse by overseas billionaire investors benefits us all, and that there’s no alternative.
'New homes are not for Londoners or affordable'
“We are building lots of homes but who are they for? They’re for billionaire investors, they’re not for Londoners.”Author Anna Minton argues that new homes in London are not affordable.
Posted by Channel 4 News on Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Seven reasons the Tories will never fix the housing crisis
7 REASONS THE TORIES WILL NEVER FIX THE HOUSING CRISIS. Want safe, secure and affordable housing for everyone? KICK OUT THE TORIES.Video by Harriet Vickers for RHN. #ukhousing
Posted by Radical Housing Network on Sunday, June 4, 2017
“To solve the crisis, we need massive public investment. Not going to happen with the Tories. Want the housing crisis to go away? Kick out the Tories.”
From The Guardian: Fewer affordable homes were built in the past year than any time in the past 24 years, while there was a 52% fall in the supply of new homes in just 12 months.
Builders put the finishing touches to 32,110 affordable homes in England in the year to the end of March 2016, compared with 66,600 over the previous year, according to figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
Of those, just 6,550 – about 20% – were for social rent, which critics say is the only truly affordable housing tenure, with the rest made available to rent or buy at “affordable” rates of up to 80% of market value.
Critics said the figures were disastrous, and called on the government to do more to encourage housebuilding. They come as the proportion of households that own a property is at a 30-year low and rising house prices have driven the cost of buying a home to more than 10 times the average salary in a third of England and Wales.
From Daily Mail: The plight of first-time buyers has reached a new level as new research suggests they now need a deposit worth £33,000 on average, while the amount they pay for a home has never been higher.
From Daily Mirror: David Cameron has announced that he’ll extend the Right to Buy scheme to housing associations. That’s the last thing we need. It’s a supply problem, not an ownership problem and what would actually help is to build more new houses.
Here’s the evidence in 6 charts.