{"id":68984,"date":"2023-03-31T08:16:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T07:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=68984"},"modified":"2023-03-31T08:16:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T07:16:22","slug":"68984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2023\/03\/31\/68984\/","title":{"rendered":"What should be done about the housing crisis?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As financial advisers Hargreaves Lansdown note this morning, Nationwide <a href=\"https:\/\/74n5c4m7.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me\/L0\/https:%2F%2Fwww.nationwidehousepriceindex.co.uk%2Freports%2Fhouse-prices-record-seventh-consecutive-monthly-decline-in-march\/1\/01020187366fe4d8-a615bcc4-29bf-426c-9f41-22dafbf29c7d-000000\/bVB-2t2v7OqbFnIFcyi1TQQ0LiU=315\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has published its House Price Index for March 202<\/a>3. As they note:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>House price slip becomes a slump: biggest annual drop in 14 years<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>House prices are down 3.1% - the biggest drop since July 2009.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s the seventh consecutive month of house price falls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>Prices fell faster in March than in February \u2013 down 0.8% in a month compared to a 0.5% drop in February.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>The average house price is \u00a3257,122. This is 4.6% below August\u2019s peak (\u00a3273,751).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Three thoughts. First, such drops are the usual harbinger of recession.<\/p>\n<p>Second, there is some comfort for the Bank of England in this: the misery it is creating for homeowners with a mortgage is having an impact.<\/p>\n<p>Third, significant as this is in the short term it does not make housing any more affordable for most people. The urgent need for massive government intervention to create secure long-term tenancy of properties available to vastly more people is vital if this problem is to be solved.<\/p>\n<p>I am curious as to what people think about this last issue, which was discussed on Question Time last night. What are your preferred solutions to the housing crisis (you have three votes as this is a multi-faceted issue):<\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-33\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>How should we solve the housing crisis?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-33-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>Build more social housing <small>(31%, 377 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 31%;\" title=\"Build more social housing (31% | 377 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Significantly increase the cost of second home owning <small>(16%, 196 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 16%;\" title=\"Significantly increase the cost of second home owning (16% | 196 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Cap rents <small>(15%, 190 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 15%;\" title=\"Cap rents (15% | 190 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Make carbon-neutral housing the focus of a government Green New Deal <small>(14%, 170 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 14%;\" title=\"Make carbon-neutral housing the focus of a government Green New Deal (14% | 170 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Compulsorily purchase empty properties <small>(9%, 112 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 9%;\" title=\"Compulsorily purchase empty properties (9% | 112 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Build more houses <small>(7%, 92 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 7%;\" title=\"Build more houses (7% | 92 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Increase council tax on under-occupied property <small>(4%, 54 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 4%;\" title=\"Increase council tax on under-occupied property (4% | 54 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Change planning laws <small>(2%, 29 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 2%;\" title=\"Change planning laws (2% | 29 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>I'm abstaining, but show me the results anyway <small>(1%, 9 Votes)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 1%;\" title=\"I&#039;m abstaining, but show me the results anyway (1% | 9 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\">Total Voters: <strong>487<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_33_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"792cd56ab5\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-33-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\" \/>&nbsp;Loading ...<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As financial advisers Hargreaves Lansdown note this morning, Nationwide has published its House Price Index for March 2023. As they note: House price slip becomes<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2023\/03\/31\/68984\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68987,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68984\/revisions\/68987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}