Thatchers right to buy policy

I thought it was more like 50%.

It was a very socialist policy, lost on those who advocate such things.

Can't say I agreed with it. Overly generous and did nothing to encourage people to work hard and save.

She should of course have replaced the housing stock.

Socialist? taking what everyone owns and giving at under market value to one person?

gerrymandering, paying for votes.

The discount depends on how long one had been a paying tenant. The longer you have been a paying tenant, the bigger the discount. So I think that chucking rent at the council for 40 years justifies the decent discount.

If I were to rent privately should the landlord sell it to me at a discount?

So it's only middle-class sprogs who are allowed to get a windfall when their parents depart by inheriting what mummy and daddy have been paying off throughout their lives?

Typical champagne socialism... Inherit some property in Hampstead themselves and then keep the scummy council house renting rats in their place by having them pay rent for life with no payback!

Some went with a near 50% discount. Some will now be bought back under compulsory purchase orders I think.

It was mostly relatively poor housing stock which under most circumstances many buyers wouldn't have bought.
Designed to be a vote buyer to council house dwellers, whilst crapping on non-buying council house, or future council house, dwellers.
Because at the same time caps/bans were put on councils to stop any further house building and to allow for the incorporation of 'housing associations'.

A huge proportion of the population grew up or lived in council housing. As a result of the right to buy 'programme' there isn't enough council housing to go round and quite a bit of what was sold off has now gone to career landlords, rental yield which would (without the history of right to buy) otherwise have gone to councils, (meaning less council tax?) and rents would have been a bit lower.

A case study to help the debate. I grew up on a pleasant Sussex village council estate.  After I married and moved away, it took me about 18 months to persuade my dad to accept the offer he had to buy his house for £10k (at a 60% discount). Most of the houses are now owner-occupied, largely by second move couples with children (which is good as we still have our village school) but these couples are relatively wealthy. My dad is still in his house (aged 88), and the identical semi next door is currently on the market for £380k.

Was a fantastic opportunity for people who otherwise couldn't afford it to buy a home of their own.
Those who feel the world owes them a living as per normal didn't make the effort.

Akabula - Was definitely a fantastic opportunity for those buying a national asset at a huge discount

Everything in this country is sold off to investors at a discounted price, why should housing be any different, at least this time it might be British people making a profit.

do they have to be british or just in council housing?

Think you reading into my post too much, what i meant was most british companies are now foreign owned. I have no idea what the nationality of the council house buyers were in thatcher years.

blackbarn  • January 24, 2016 8:34 PM GMT 
Akabula - Was definitely a fantastic opportunity for those buying a national asset at a huge discount

A national asset that they had bought through paying rent hence the massive discount.

Akabula - that is one way of looking at it, and you and I will have that perspective, but there is very little doubt that your average Council House tenant (including my Dad) thought of it in that way.  My parents were hugely grateful to get a council house in the village in which they both grew up and worked.   Couples in the same boat today have little chance of finding themselves so well treated, because the council houses they might have got have now been sold off.

Akabula - not sure where you live but.................. here in this village in rural mid-sussex

3 Bedroom Semi Detached ex-Council Houses make 350k+ and the few 2up 2down terraced cottages we have make £300k

1.5m homes been sold this way since 1980, thats a tidy sum

I'm in a similar location but up here on the west coast of Scotland in the Highlands where house prices are much lower. Prob about half that.
We inherited a second house (ex-council) which I'll soon be selling. Tried renting but nearly got the jail because of my tenants.
Can't really go into detail but no matter how tenants abuse a property and no matter if they fail to pay rent the law is on their side.
I resolved the issue or at least a family member did.

I hope yer son didn't play them at poker for the house

Thatcher sold off the council houses, and the revenue went toward paying off National Debt..None of the revenue was used to rebuild more social housing, thereby reducing the opportunity of those unable to buy from renting council owned properties.
One of the worst decisions ever made in this country, and we have reaped the social cost ever since,
And this Tory government are carrying on this legacy, with the plans to tear down social housing estates , with promise that houses will be built to rehouse current tenants, whilst also offering opportunity to buy ' affordable homes '
More and more people will find themselves unable to afford to buy, will have no social housing to rent, thereby forcing them into the hands of unscrupulous private landlords, who will continue to provide awful living conditions for exorbitant rents.
A total joke - except it's far from funny. Just one more step in the capitalist strategy to deprive the poorest of our society of even a roof over their heads. Obscene.

... council houses that were bought (and sold on ) have tended to improve over the years  as more of those estates have become owner occupied,  some 'council estates' today look far tidier than a lot of private areas, with better kept gardens and improvements etc.

Where houses or flats weren't bought because the tenants didn't like the area to start with (too many problem families)   and have remained in the councils care  have deteriorated on the whole .

You could say that the bought houses  with all the add ons have gone up in value as a result of the purchase ,and in turn the  area has become more marketable. So the discount isn't as great as you may think.
Also most increase on property is inflation and not because the discount is huge .

So a 20,000 house in 1980 council sale price 10k - 10k saving x 4 inflation +40k.

improvemets say 20k

20k  cash gain in todays market - hardly a massive windfall

in fact there is a greater gain  for youngsters today on this silly  help to buy  scheme  ,but thats another story

Mrs H has strong views on this, as she tried to stand on her own two feet and buy a small house and struggled to pay the mortgage.

Some of her contemporaries ponced off the state in a council house and then were given massive discounts to buy them.

re: state of ex council houses in private hands and those still owned by council

Opposite is what I see, private landlords not wanting to pay for fixes. Council owned by far the better state in my area

A lot of these properties were sold off as a lot of the council home owners
had fragile employment and a job loss would mean the house being sold off.
Where I live there is a Landlady who took advantage and owns 100 such properties
in the local estate...

Many of the people who bought would have paid as much in rent that others had paid buying their properties. It was a very good thing to do, I believe, putting the wealth in the hands of the people.

Also, I'd assume that some of the property or proceeds from it will be used when elderly occupants go into care. The alternative to this, is the rest of taxpayers being saddled with the cost of care for those that have no assets.

Council house rents have always been at a considerable discount to those in the private sector so the council tenants had been living in a subsidised environment before any right to buy.
One of the problems with right to buy was that people were encouraged to buy who were not owner-occupier mentality and who were used to having the council as a financial and emotional prop. When things went wrong they were not used to having to sort things out themselves and many ended up in financial difficulties.
Too many tenants, like lambs to the slaughter, over burdened themselves with mortgages encouraged and arranged by dodgy mortgage brokers.

Well built houses,solid interior walls and  many with gardens much bigger than today's new builds.

As Blackbarn says, they gave their tennants the opportunity to but a place locally, often in villages.

I live in Sussex too and the old council housing stock is in great locations and very popular if you can afford them.

I do fear for the youngsters today and the ones after. One bed flats here at 150k if you're lucky. Can pay 180k.

The 70s generation had it very, very good when it came to property.

Here's a thought to throw out there. Why can't the Govt buy up housing from the private sector and rent it out at say, 40% less than market value?

With the housing benefit bill at £25bn, I would say the government is already footing the bill for more than enough private housing.

Thatcher sold off the council houses, and the revenue went toward paying off National Debt..None of the revenue was used to rebuild more social housing, thereby reducing the opportunity of those unable to buy from renting council owned properties.
One of the worst decisions ever made in this country, and we have reaped the social cost ever since,
And this Tory government are carrying on this legacy...................


Of course you have conveniently omitted the 13 years of Labour Government when the opportunity to rectify your perceived problem was not seized.

But by buying private sector housing stock they have a long term asset.

Housing Benefit is money down the drain. It encourages low pay and zero personal ambition.

We all know that HB and unemployment pay is undesirable, but what would you put in its place?

That is the question which is never answered.

Just a thought but the Govt could buy up private sector housing and rent it out cheaper than the market rate.

1) It would shake up private rents which are often unaffordable.

2) Reduce HB bill as many of its recipients would be given these properties.

3) The Govt would have a long term asset in what it's purchased. It can sell these off in due course or keep for 100 years.

4) With cheaper rent, people would have more money to spend in the economy.

just build them, whats benefit of buying them already built?

just build them, whats benefit of buying them already built?

brendanuk1 25 Jan 16 10:36 Joined: 12 Jan 02 | Topic/replies: 28,505 | Blogger: brendanuk1's blog
re: state of ex council houses in private hands and those still owned by council

Opposite is what I see, private landlords not wanting to pay for fixes. Council owned by far the better state in my area
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not sure where you live ,but towns such as Ipswich ,Derby,Blackburn  etc all have similar style housing stock - a lot of terraced housing which in the inner city parts is far ,far cheaper to buy than a house on a council estate , for rental yield  the landlords like the old style private terraces - a bit run down , a snip for 100k and rented out to doley families - council houses generally go round here for around 135 -150 - possibly because of the bigger gardens ,and most are on the better estates .
  So no ,not that many ex council are in rented hands here .

Land.

The Govt can buy them close to hospitals, schools, transport and jobs.

Injera that would be the same as nationalising the rental sector.

Why not go the whole hog and nationalise everything if nationalisation is such a good idea?

i will

also add that since the council no longer build and the stock has depleted  most modern estates are housing associations  -  and the newest of these  estates have a lot of social problems -  some are very good mind.

Apples to orchards and all that .

I've seen some confused right-wingers on here in my time, but Injera takes the biscuit!

bix has hit the nail on the head

Dr C - or it's about reacting to the current shambles of excessive rents, caused by a housing bubble that was never addrressed.

The private rental sector needs competition if our kids and grandkids are ever going to have a prayer.

Some nationalisation works. Roads for example....

Let's not forget, HB and tax credits are a type of nationalising people.... How many people in the UK are independent of Govt subsidy...??

It's madness really.

BTW, I'm thinking aloud whilst it's raining in Centurion...

We haven't got excessive rents outside of London.

You can't fix London because there are too many people there chasing too few houses.

We're in a low wage economy and people can't afford to buy new properties where they want to live. So they're not getting build.

Everybody will have to get used to it.

I's one of the drawbacks of importing cheap labour for fifteen years which they don't tell us about.

There's no way out of the housing mess.

That's my fear Dr C...

Spiralling immigration has led to excessive demand for land and therefore high prices.

Excessive supply of labour from abroad leads to lower wages. It's basic economics.

Reduce supply of labour for starters, Make employers fight for staff. Wages go up.

Reduce demand for land in built up areas. National town planning to focus on new towns/cities in underpopulated parts of the UK. A national strategy.

I live in Sussex which is basically a suburb of London....We're obsessed with the Capital...

There's no way out of the housing mess
It's the same in so many other areas. Too many people here now and not enough resources to cope. Roads, NHS, Police, schools etc.

Thatcher's right to buy was appropriate at the time, but events have overtaken it.

We had a population of 50-55 million with plenty of houses to go around.
It was all nicely balanced.

She didn't know that we would be expanding the population at the rate that we did.
Now we've got too many people, and no hope of changing things without wrecking the economy.

Also we've got a lot more single people living on their own.
That can't help.

Houses couyld be made easier to buy though - there are enough houses right ? it's just that too many are second homes,owned by landlords or under occupied .



why not have interest only  ? and also segment the payments so you pay much more later on if at all ,so ypure like owing interest on the interest - it's not necessary to own your house outright at any time of your life.

I see a time  when most houses will be owned by big companies  and not private landlords - there will be healthy competition  -

Selling council houses was a terribly short sighted move.  I don't think any government of any colour has built enough houses in any year in the last forty plus years.  Hence house price inflation pricing the youth out of the market.  Anyone who cares for their kids' future shouldn't want house prices to go up, but amazing how many baby boomer "i'm alright jack" daily mail reader types don't have sense enough to see this.

,so ypure like owing interest on the interest

In about 1987/8 we had deferred interest mortgages where borrowers paid a low rate in the first few years after which the interest which han't been paid was added onto the capital borrowed and the rate went up to the true rate. This may have been ok except just when a lot of borrowers came off the low rate interest rates went up to 15% very quickly so they were now asked to pay 15% on the original capital borrowed plus the interest owing from early years.  The big hike in monthly payments resulted in a lot of reposessions.

"i'm alright jack" daily mail reader types

I don't think many Daily Mail readers were in favour of flooding the country with cheap labour and sending the population through the roof.

Same old socialists, wreck everything then blame someone else.

Bix: 'The big hike in monthly payments resulted in a lot of reposessions.'

Coach:  I understand , 15% is a huge amount to pay back , but  repossesion should be a real last resort  , the aim should be just be to furnish the interest ,as long as the debt never overtakes the value of the house  -  in 1987 that may have even been the case .

hope you can make out how i have written it there bix  -  i made a right dogs dinner of it as usual .#

I seem to recall that those deferred interest mortgages were quite high loan to value when property prices were very high, and a means of allowing people to buy when their income didn't allow them to borrow enough at normal rates. The theory was that wages would rise to allow the borrower to afford the extra payments. I think shortly afterwards property prices fell and many borrowers were now in a negative equity position so after reposession and the property sold by the lender, the borrower still was in debt to the lender. In most cases the borrower had taken out an insurance policy (mortgage indemnity)to pay off such debt but although the lender got their money back this way the insurance companies still pursued the borrower aggresively for the amount which the insurance company had paid out.

sounds like  it was all a case of bad timing , a pity as i still belive this sytem would work well normally . 15% is terrible interest to pay when wages werent rising that fast - not sure wh y the difference was so high .

I know i was paying 4% when inflation was  at 0.5%

are  banks keeping all this extra profit ? they seem to be the bigger problem