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In the quarter of a century since 1996, UK house prices have risen 161%: from around 4.5 times average household income then to around 8 times now. In 2018 renters spent 33% of their household income on rent, rising to 40% in London.
Affordability is a nationwide problem, with rural areas having a higher ‘affordability gap’ than urban areas. It is particularly acute in England, where in 2017 new build homes were unaffordable to 84% of renting families.
Unaffordable housing is linked to a sharp fall in home ownership, especially among young people and families with children, and to an increase in homelessness. Prior to the pandemic, the number of rough sleepers had more than doubled since 2010.
It is now estimated that more than 8m people in England – around 1 in 7 – are living in an unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable home. A range of different types and tenure of housing are needed – not just homes to buy, but better and more affordable social and privately-rented accommodation.
The National Housing Federation has conducted a ‘state of the nation’ assessment of the housing crisis, finding high house prices and rents, unsuitable or poor quality homes, and the overall shortage of new homes. It reveals that more than 3.6m people are living in overcrowded homes, 2.5m people can’t afford their rent or mortgage and another 2.5m adults are stuck living with parents, an ex-partner, or friends because they can’t afford to move out.
The housing charity Shelter analyses the particularly acute housing crisis in London, where rising private rents and a fall in the number of social homes has left tens of thousands of families struggling with unaffordable and insecure housing, and nearly 1 in 50 adults now homeless.
The Commission on Housing and Wellbeing analysed the need for a new approach to housing in Scotland, showing how better homes could contribute to improving neighbourhood and community, economic wellbeing, health and education and environmental sustainability.
To meet housing demand an estimated 345,000 new homes are needed per year in England alone. The level of housebuilding has increased in recent years but is still far below this level.
It is widely argued that a core problem is the UK's developer-led model of housebuilding. Private developers compete for land and then 'bank' it, waiting until they believe they will make the most profit from increases in land values and from building homes. This causes significant delays and helps push up costs.
It also reflects the broader transformation of housing and the land it sits on into a financial asset. Over recent decades the public policy preference for private home ownership has been accompanied by the liberalisation of bank credit and accompanying financial innovation. Under these conditions, land and property have become both the most attractive form of collateral for the banking system and the most desirable form of financial asset for households and investors.
While some criticise the planning system for slowing development, the data doesn’t support this: 88% of new housing planning applications are granted. Local authorities are key to building more homes: the UK has never delivered homebuilding at the required scale without major locally-led public projects. Local authorities are under-resourced and often lack access to affordable land. They are also under significant pressure to sell off land they already own to balance their budgets.
The Resolution Foundation’s Intergenerational Commission examined how to tackle the housing crisis faced by young people. It calls for reform of the private rented sector, end the 'help to buy' scheme which raises housing demand, the reform of property taxes including stamp duty, and greater funding for local authorities to build homes.
Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane explores the relationship between the financial system, housing and land; it is summarised in this review for the LSE Review of Books. Noting how mainstream economics largely ignores the role of land, the authors show how land and housing have become key financial assets, and how wealth inequality is driven by housing and land ownership. Their policy recommendations include a Land Value Tax.
The New Economics Foundation explores the role of banks and the financial system, supported by government policies, in fuelling house price growth – with housing wealth now making up almost half of total household assets. In a separate report they argue that the housing crisis will only be solved if what they describe as 'the broken land market' is tackled.
Arguing that the 'broken land market' has played a key role in the financialisation of the UK economy and its poor productivity record and that high house prices have fed macroeconomic instability, IPPR call for a range of reforms. These include a housing price inflation target for the Bank of England, reform of compulsory purchase laws to allow local authorities to buy land at fair value, a requirement for new housing developments to include a minimum proportion of affordable housing, an annual property tax to replace council tax and a land value tax to replace business rates.
Social housebuilding has declined sharply in recent decades. The 'right to buy' policies of the 1980s and 1990s led to greatly reduced income for local authorities, whose ability to borrow in order to build homes was capped until 2018. Today there are widespread calls for a major new programme of council-led social housing. Housing charity Shelter proposes that 3.1 million homes should be build over the next 20 years. While local authorities now have the power to borrow, the reality of their funding situation means they will need support from national government to deliver on that kind of ambition.
Around 20% of UK homes are privately rented, up from 10% in 1996-97. In 2018 it was estimated that 16% of millennials will end up privately renting 'from cradle to grave'. The booming private rental market includes some of the worst quality housing stock and many renters have insecure housing tenures.
Proposals for tackling this include giving renters legal protection from sharp price increases, maintaining and regulating a central register of private landlords, and bringing in controls on the rents that can be charged. Giving renters indefinite leases – as is currently the norm in Scotland – would allow evictions to be banned except for specified reasons such as the sale of the property.
In its review of the future of social housing, Shelter calls for a 'decisive and generational shift in housing policy'. Its proposed programme of investment and reform includes a new housing regulator, a renewal of public housebuilding in mixed communities, with all homes sold being replaced, and the creation of permanent tenancies as a legal minimum for all private renters. .
CLES is working with the London Borough of Newham to create a municipally owned property and redevelopment company, using a 'community wealth building' approach to embark on a municipal housebuilding programme to create affordable homes for the borough’s residents.
Shelter proposes a programme of New Civic Housebuilding, combining land market reform with public investment to channel private competition into raising the quality and affordability of homes.
In its review of the private rental market, IPPR calls for a range of reforms, including the establishment of a national landlord register and a 'property MOT', a new specialist housing court to deal with landlord-tenant housing disputes, mandatory open-ended tenancies, limiting rent increases to the consumer price index, and changes to Universal Credit to better support renters.
IPPR call for an affordable housebuilding programme in England's rural areas to close the 'affordability gap' between house prices and average incomes.
The UK’s system of property and land taxation is regressive. This is particularly the case for council tax, where the poorest tenth of the population pay 8% of their income in council tax while the richest 40% pay 2-3%.
While noting that any change to the current system would be politically difficult, there is widespread agreement that the system needs overhaul and many proposals have been made for reform.
One option would be increase the number of council tax bands at the top end, making the tax less regressive. An alternative would be to replace council tax with a proportional tax on the value of housing.
A different option would be to tax the land, not the property. A land value tax is a levy on the rental value of land, rather than the buildings on it. A longstanding reform proposal, this would help ensure that land with housing planning permission was not left derelict or undeveloped. It would also capture the uplift in land value that occurs when infrastructure is built or planning permission granted which has nothing to do with the landowner's own efforts.
Other proposals include the reduction or abolition of stamp duty, which reduces the volume of house sales and acts to discourage older people from downsizing.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies argues for the reform of council tax. Its leading proposal is to combine a revaluation (the current system still uses 1991 house values) with a continuous and proportionate taxation of housing value. It would need to be accompanied by a significant adjustment of council tax funding by central government.
A cross-party, cross-sector Tax Commission convened by Bright Blue proposed an Annual Proportional Property Tax to replace Council Tax and Stamp Duty to help achieve government aims of levelling up and delivering net zero.
Land Value Tax expert Andy Wightman has modelled how a land value tax would work in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. A Land Value Tax is one of the priority recommendations of the Scottish Commission into Housing and Wellbeing.
The New Economics Foundation argue for a land value tax to replace business rates as a source of revenue for local government.
A number of proposals for solving the housing crisis focus on giving power and ownership of land to communities.
In one model, that of Community Land Trusts, land is gifted to or purchased by a community-run body to develop affordable housing and hold it for the long term. In Scotland such trusts are supported by a Community Right to Buy for neglected land.
A second area of focus is ensuring more land is brought into, or kept in, the public sector. Campaigners call for a halt to the programme of selling off public land for development which, they warn, is leading both to unaffordable housing and a reduction in the state’s ability to decide what gets built where.
Proposals have been made for the establishment of a Public Land Bank or similar body to take an oversight of how best strategically to use land in the public sector, and to bring more land into public ownership.
The National Community Land Trust Network supports community land trusts through funding, resources, training and advice and works with government, local authorities; lenders and funders to establish the best conditions for CLTs to grow and flourish.
In 'The Policies of Belonging', centre-right think tank Onward recommends giving communities the right to establish Community Land Trusts to develop community-led housing.
Civitas called for a change to the law so that compulsory purchase by the state would only require compensation at existing, not potential future, use values. This would disincentivise land banking and allow councils to lead development in the interests of local communities.
The New Economics Foundation calls for a halt to the government’s programme of selling off public land to build houses and recommends establishing a Public Land Bank for purchasing and selling land.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change calls for a Sovereign Property Fund – a national endowment to support local councils to build new housing. The Fund would centralise oversight of all the land in public ownership.
