Effects Of Rights On The Housing Market Of Uk

A housing policy can be thought of as the efforts put in by a given government to transform a housing market(s) for the purposes of achieving social objectives. In most cases, a housing policy is meant to ensure that the general population has access to a home that is affordable. For instance, the British Conservative/Liberal Democratic coalition’s housing policy is aimed at increasing the number of affordable housing units; fostering homeownership; making social housing flexible; tackling homelessness (especially for the

Local authority stock levels have been decreasing each year since the 1980s. This is mainly due to tenants buying their homes under right to buy coupled with a decline in the number of new local authority dwellings being built, as well as community ownership programmes whereby a public authority transfers either all or part of its housing stock and management function to RSLs.

Last but not least, this policy brief suggests the government should remove the stamp duty – tax imposed on property purchases - for the first home buyer to enable their access to the housing market. Stamp duty often discourage people from buying and selling property. Thus, removing stamp duty would improve the supply of housing, as well as reducing a range of adverse impact on the housing market (The Treasury, 2009). Recently, the NSW Government has announced the decision to abolish the stamp duty for the properties worth up to $650,000 (targeting first home buyers) and it would save them up to $24,740 (NSW Government, 2017). This reform does bring a positive impact on housing affordability as it will help first home buyers to access the housing market at an affordable price in comparison to the past.

Selling of council houses is becoming an increasing issue in the UK as people and even businesses are buying the house out. This means hundreds of family homes are now owned by private landlords or individual people. As a consequence, families are finding it difficult to find family-homes to live in.

Furthermore, lack of affordable housing has become an issue for additional reasons. 50,000 new homes were built since 1981 but only 8000 were local authority housing, and only 2000 were low income houses. This was worsened by the implementation of the ‘right to buy’ scheme, creating a surge in house prices (a 1 bedroom apartment now costs around £500,000). It could be suggested that this issue counteracts successes of the scheme, as issues still exist including 3500 homeless people in the area and the housing prices are significantly above the UK average, so they have not achieved their aim to ‘make housing affordable to all.’ However, I believe that the Docklands has been a successful example of regeneration as it is now such a significant part of the capital, with it being London’s finance capital providing not only important economic contributions, but also employment to many people in the skilled sector.

Housing Affordability in Australia has become the focus point for urban planners in recent years. In particular, South East Queensland (SEQ) has experienced significant pressure as the demand for property and affordable dwellings increases and population growth in the region continues. The issue has come to the forefront in discussions for local governments in the region and there is a real need to address the problem of housing affordability. The subject of affordability is complex and is contributed to by a number of factors including the impost created by Council processes, which is the scope of the HAF-T5 Project.

Housing affordability can be defined as the ability to access appropriate housing at tenure or price which is not a significant burden upon household income. (1, 2) Australia has seen a significant decline in housing affordability; average house prices have increased by 147% between 2001 and 2011. This was not matched by increases in income. (1) This decline can be attributed to economic growth, population growth, more accessible finance and incentives for owners and investors. These factors create an incentive to buy and store wealth in housing, resulting in overinvestment and house price inflation. (2, 3) Consequently, this results in depletion of affordable housing for low-income households and increases pressure on social housing stocks. (1, 4) Supply and demand has a significant effect on housing affordability. (1)

Macroeconomics is an excellent tool for the analysis of the housing industry as something like a capital good, as a home is considered to be, cannot easily be studied in a short-term platform. Real estate is a good that costs several times more than an average persons annual income, in the United States that number is typically 7 times as much, and in the United Kingdom that number is 14 times as much. Several factors of both supply and demand directly impact the housing market on a macroeconomic scale. (Business Economics, 1)

Recently, The Australian housing market has been growing rapidly which reflects the housing affordability crisis as the housing price rises much quickly than household incomes. There are two key observations of current Australian housing market from Yates, firstly today’s housing affordability problem is mainly a structural problem and intensified by cyclical pressures. It began 40 years ago when inflation switched focus on housing, besides, there are more renters than purchasers under today’s housing stress situation, and the housing

Multiple reasons exist for the the lack of affordable housing. On the demand side these include population growth and increased migration to urban areas, easily accessible housing finance, tax incentives and a “strong cultural preference for owner-occupied detached houses”. On the supply side, affordability problems are exacerbated by inflexible and slow responses to the need for new housing stock, lack of infrastructure and generally inefficient planning processes and development assessment by local governments.

In essence, “leases” are created between landlords and tenants as contracts to grant exclusive possession of the land for a defined period of time, in exchange of rent from tenant. Leases give contractual interests to tenants, while at the same time creates proprietary interests in the land by granting exclusive possession, which elevates a tenancy into an “estate/interest in land”. It can therefore be understood and has been suggested by commentators that leases are of dual nature and should “be characterised as something of a hybrid”[1]: a hybrid of contract and estate in land. In the landmark case of Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust[2],

A place to call home, a concept that much of society aspires to. A home is a sanctuary, a place to raise a family; home after all, is where the heart belongs. However, does the notion that a house is make a house any less of a home than a house that is owner occupied? Housing policy during the latter part of the 20th century began to shift towards owner occupation. One policy in particular completely changed the face of housing, it brought about the biggest shake up in housing history. The Conservative Government’s ‘Right to Buy’ scheme or ‘Council House Privatisation’ as written in (Baldock, Mitton, Manning & Vickerstaff, 2012), formed part of the Housing Act 1980, the then secretary of state for the environment, Michael Heseltine, stated "This bill lays the foundations for one of the most important social revolutions of this century” (Jones, 2011). Therefore, this essay will answer the question can the “Right to Buy” policy as introduced

Those who rent from private landlords do not only tend to, on average, pay almost double the rent of a person living within social housing but also are twice as likely to live in a residence the Government would class as a “non-decent home”, a residence in disrepair and one that does not meet health and safety standards (Jonathan Owen, 2014). The undisputable growth of private renting sector is not limited to England but is also noticeable in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In wales the private rental sector represents 14% of total housing, the private rental sector in Scotland has doubled over the last ten years as more than three hundred thousand properties have been sold and in Northern Ireland private landlords own more properties than councils and housing associations combined according to national figures provided in 214 (Jonathan Owen, 2014).

To what extent do the Singapore Government’s policies on housing and immigration, help to increase the demand of the private property sector in the housing market.

Government policies and subsides have a sizable impact on property price, and demand. The government can temporarily boost demand with tax credits, deduction and subsidies. From the customers point of view