Housing all gone! Why we should leave the EU if we ever want housing

The time had to come when we would run out of housing and that day is now here. The private housing market is now at gridlock with just the rubbish that no one wants to buy and anyone with anything decent keeping hold off it. Noticeably there are very few houses on the market for this reason. Social housing has also gone having been filled up and only the severest of cases being considered.

Before we start blaming the EU for everything, it was successive Tory governments that sold social housing off at a massive discount. It was British governments that deregulated the lending market fuelling a housing boom in this country, and it is a British NIMBY and 'let's keep the UK just as it is' attitude that sees housing development after housing development kicked into the long grass.

We could solve the housing problem tomorrow simply by building more houses, but there is no political will to do so.

This is starting now and will continue in the years to come unless we get out of the EU.

Still, the EU has different ways of helping the housing crisis itself. Have you heard what Kent is doing? It's ingenious.

Kent has run out of housing spaces and, being next to London, it's under one of the highest housing pressures in the UK. As a result, Kent has been urging its residents not to buy houses in Kent because they're too expensive and there is such a low demand. Instead, Kent has been telling people to buy houses in Northern France and then commute through Kent to London on Eurostar services or on the ferry.

Over in Northern France, these so-called 'Eurocommuters' (which in total number about 1,000) face better standards of living, lowered council taxes, lowered housing costs and a nice countryside contrast to the hectic London city life - although it does mean waking up early in the morning and arriving late in the evening because of the long commute (although you could always work on the ferry or the train!). Eurocommuters also ensure that cross-channel services like the Eurostar remain economically-viable to operate.

If we were to leave the EU, these Eurocommuters would face significant delays to their international commuting as a result of reinstated strict international borders. It would force them to either return to the UK or quit their jobs - to the expense of the UK economy and the benefit of the French or Belgian economy, say.

Although the numbers of Eurocommuters are still small, it is one way in which - through being in the EU - the UK is able to manage its housing crisis. In the future, if international travel fares remain low (through staying in the EU), then Eurocommuting can expand as a viable way to commute into London and keep some tens of thousands of people away from the UK's housing market. But the only long-term solution remains to increase the UK's supply of houses - and this can only be done through national government policy.

What on earth is ingenious about this? The cost of such a commute would be astronomical, yes perhaps the rich can manage it. Then like you say you would be exhausted at the end of each of the 5 day a week you work because of the time you have to get up and go to bed, add in the need to eat, shop for food, etc. I really don't think that 1000 or so people living the other side of the channel is going to dent the housing market much, not much in Kent and certainly not at all in terms of the whole UK - its not a viable solution to solve the crises. 180,000 EU migrants come to the UK each year which swamps the 1000 you quote. Unless we stop being complacent about the 'oh well the same number come from outside the EU' we are failing to address this demand issue of the housing market all together, and as explained above the housing crises is about demand not just supply, we can never supply enough to meet present needs. Even if we where to build across the masses of Green belt that we would have to build on we don't have the trades in the construction industry to do so. The only way is to Leave the EU.

The construction industry is facing a major skills shortage after the recession/credit crunch - not enough bricklayers, carpenters, tilers, electricians, plumbers, etc.

You were doing really well until you mentioned Europe. The demand isn't going to go away if we close our borders tomorrow. And the construction industry will struggle even more if it can't recruit from abroad. But I still think the issue is planning over building. There is no incentive for the construction industry to expand because there isn't enough new land to build on due to planning regulations. After the war, when we needed new housing, we just build towns and cities were they were required and all within the space of a few years. Are you really saying that Europe is stopping us do that again if we wanted to?

I think I maintained throughout that argument that it was ingenious but small-scale - but if the EU continues to promote easy and quick movement across the continent, facilitated by continued freedom of moment, Eurocommuting can become a viable alternative for some tens or even hundreds of thousands of people to be kept away from the UK's housing market.

You haven't provided any evidence or facts to support your claim that we simply cannot meet the housing demand by building more houses. Would you have any indication to show this?

In the meanwhile, if I could point to your attention to recent figures released around three weeks ago. They noted that whilst there are 2.1 million EU immigrants in the UK, there are 2 million UK emigrants in the rest of the European Union. This means that if everyone were returned to their original country of origin, the UK population would decrease by a mere 100,000 people - so the housing crisis would still exist if we stopped all migration in the European Union, contrary to your claim.

The argument that we should focus on reducing demand and not on increasing supply is also economically quite ludicrous. It means promoting a stagnation of the economy so that there is less economic growth: unless you have new immigrants and new houses, your economy is less able to grow as it cannot attract new workers so easily.

Supply can easily be increased: not only are there several hundred thousand homes already empty in the UK, but simply reducing governmental red tape, removing the 'Right to Buy' scheme and subsidising the cost of large-scale affordable home development would be a relatively cheap and easy way to boost supply quickly and efficiently. The housing crisis is a failure of national government policy and not the European Union; it is about supply and not about demand.

Say, though, that we wanted to change government policy to provide more affordable housing. What could we do?

I look to the Liberal Democrats (source), who are both supporting a 'Remain' vote and are committed to building more affordable housing. They say lifting the borrowing cap on authorities could generate 80,000 homes over five years - or about 16,000 homes a year. They also claim banning primary advertising to overseas investors could cause more affordable houses to be built and to be made available to UK residents first. The Liberal Democrats also support a 'Help to Rent' policy in which government supplies up to £2,000 to help young people secure a tenancy deposit (source). The cumulative effect, they claim, is about 300,000 new homes every year.

Importantly as well, according to UK national charity Empty Homes, official statistics indicate a total 600,000 homes across the UK which are empty (source).
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The problem is not lack of houses but a lack of houses people in ordinary jobs like nurses, mechanics and taxi drivers can afford to buy.

In London, the price to wage ratio is over 9:1 which is way above the lending ratio for a mortgage of around 3-4:1. There are plenty of houses for sale everywhere, just look in any estate agent window but at prices only those with high paying jobs can afford or those lucky enough to get help from their families.

In my area, there are plans to build 3000 new houses but its been delayed because the locals complain about more traffic and pressure on local facilities like schools.

In addition, house builders have large land banks, land they have bought and have planning permission but not profitable to build on at the moment. The housing crisis helps them by driving up prices and they can wait until the price is high enough for them to start building to make a large profit.

There have been moves to tax land owned by house builders so they are incentivised to build or else sell off the land to other builders.

The time had to come when we would run out of housing and that day is now here. The private housing market is now at gridlock with just the rubbish that no one wants to buy and anyone with anything decent keeping hold off it. Noticeably there are very few houses on the market for this reason. Social housing has also gone having been filled up and only the severest of cases being considered.

If anyone has seen episode 3 of 'How to get a Council House' then we see the Romanian guy come over and impose himself his wife and 5, yes count them 5 children on the UK social housing system and force his way through barging his way to the top of the queue in a matter of days over people from this country with all sorts of desperate needs that have been waiting years. Not only that but also an additional 5 school places being used up.

The only way to avoid the risk of being left homeless after you graduate and in future years is to stop the flood of immigrants from the EU to the UK carrying on like this. That means leaving the EU. Make no mistake the UK cannot create enough housing to keep up with this supply. Those wanting housing has now exhausted the housing stock available. There is no time for political pretense of a looming housing problem, the problem is now upon us, a few may get a house, many will get the street - will you be one of those that gets the street as a result of remaining in the EU? Soon our parks and thoroughfares of our big towns and cities will become choked with homeless that there is no housing in the nation to house creating a hellish environment and living for all. The only responsible thing to do is to leave the EU and avoid all of this.

Immigration is predicted to be the same if we leave the EU though.

Its immigration that is not allowing a breathing space for prices to cool off by constantly keeping demand high. If we got rid of many of the 180,000 EU migrants a year, reduced much of the 180,000 outside of EU immigrants this would help substantially to reducing demand. Hence many of the isues you noted would go, developers would no longer land band with pressure of demand land prices would not rise, More reasonable plans for development would be proposed leading to less angst from concerned locals. Back in the late 80's there was a recession in the housing market - yet we still were not building enough homes yet house prices were falling. It's the constant pressure from immigrant demand that is keeping house prices artificially high and causing all the problems you state.