Dear @BBCRadio4, I'm disappointed that your half hour analysis of housing crisis #TheBriefingRoom failed to EVEN MENTION 3 of the most significant drivers of house price rises: financial deregulation, the Buy To Let frenzy & the flaws of our speculative house building model 1/13
Worse, Andrew Whittaker went completely unchallenged when he asserted that main reason homes don’t get built is planning authorities don't allocate enough land for housing. FAR more significant barrier is our dysfunctional land market & ’speculative’ model of house building 2/13
…which gives landowners the power to hold out for eye watering windfall gains, and incentivises developers to limit supply as way maintain prices and profit margins. (Next time maybe you could interview @tobylloyd or @danielbentley on this? See e.g. civitas.org.uk/content/files/…) 3/13
Also, with respect @DAaronovitch, not “everybody agrees that the main problem is we don’t build enough homes”. Supply shortages are clearly a problem in specific areas but main reason we have such inflated & volatile house prices is because we have inflated & volatile DEMAND 4/13
And when I say inflated demand, the problem is NOT migrants seeking somewhere to live. In fact those in most dire housing need often exert least pressure on house prices, because they lack the purchasing power to back up their economic preference. (@DawnHFoster good on this) 5/13
Rather, demand in housing market has been inflated by two key things.
1) changes in mortgage market: deregulation, rise of securitization & falling interest rates, which dramatically increased eagerness/ability of banks & BSs to lend at higher Loan to Income and LTV ratios 6/13
1) changes in mortgage market: deregulation, rise of securitization & falling interest rates, which dramatically increased eagerness/ability of banks & BSs to lend at higher Loan to Income and LTV ratios 6/13
...which led to massive amounts of new money power being pumped into the housing market (next time you could consider interviewing @jryancollins on this - see his recent book with @L__Macfarlane and @tobylloyd : zedbooks.net/shop/book/reth… 7/13
2) the treatment of homes as financial assets, particularly by Buy To Let landlords (see @Saunderspeter’s report for @Civitas_UK). At heart of problem here is our failure to tax the windfall gains & unearned rents for landowners, and our appallingly weak tenants rights. 8/13
Fortunately campaigns to end exploitative rents and no fault evictions are gathering strength as @pollyn1 noted (see @genrentuk’s campaign for indefinite tenancies generationrent.org/s21supporters and emergence of orgs like @LDNRentersUnion and @ACORN_tweets) 9/13
And there’s growing understanding of critical role for tax reform in discouraging speculative demand and sharing unearned land rents (see @LukeSMurphy’s latest report for @IPPR, @davidrkadler’s report Home Truths, @adamcorlett & @lauracgardiner’s report for @resfoundation) 10/13
And there’s growing consensus that to unlock housing supply local govt must have power to compulsorily purchase land at price that does NOT include 'hope value' of prospective planning permission. See breadth of signatories to letter by @Will_Tanner ukonward.com/landreform/ 11/13
Finally, you asked whether we ought follow New Zealand’s and ban foreign ownership of property. Fortunately there are ways of fixing house prices that don’t fan the flames of xenophobia. See @guyshrubsole on this: theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 12/13
So, thanks @BBCRadio4 for focussing on the housing crisis - one of the biggest drivers of inequality, injustice & insecurity for my generation. Next time, please try to ask the questions that will shed light on the REAL causes and solutions to the crisis. Thank you. 13/13
@threadreaderapp unroll please
