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These 71 comments are related to the topic:
Rent Control, answer to the broken housing market?

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Replies: 71
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 27 Oct 17 11:13
That is true, Jack, but LHA raises the level of the whole market by acting as a base-rate (you won't find anywhere a place to rent below LHA).

That's clearly a lie, and UB knows it is a lie because it's been explained to him many times how LHA is calculated.

LHA is calculated by taking the average rent being charged in that area for that type of property then knocking around 10% off the figure that is arrived at.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 27 Oct 17 11:15
charged in that area for that type of property in the private rental sector of course.
By:
saddo
When: 27 Oct 17 11:18
There was a programme on council housing last night, foreigners making bogus applications are robbing us for fortunes apparently.
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 27 Oct 17 20:05
For anyone with an open mind, try this exercise:

1)Choose any property advertised online for rent in the UK.
2) Note the LHA rate for its postcode.
3)Find one property available cheaper than LHA.
4) Don't waste too much time looking for a unicorn. No landlord willingly advertises for less than LHA. Housing Benefit acts as a kind of taxpayer-subsidised minimum-rate for landlords. Free market indeed.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 27 Oct 17 21:30
''LHA rates are calculated each month for individual areas, known as Broad Market Rental Areas (BRMA). The LHA rate for each property size is based on the "middle of the range" rental figure for the area. Exactly half of the rental properties of that size in the area will be affordable if you claim housing benefit under the LHA rules.''

http://www.rother.gov.uk/article/6964/How-are-Local-Housing-Allowance-LHA-rates-calculated

''LHA rates are based on private market rents being paid in the BRMA which can differ from advertised rents. Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Rent Officers collect the rental information from letting agents, landlords and tenants.''

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understanding-local-housing-allowances-rates-broad-rental-market-areas
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 27 Oct 17 21:35
Go on then Dr Crippen, find a property advertised for less than LHA. You have the whole internet at your fingertips.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 27 Oct 17 21:49
During the coalition when a purge was made on benefits and caps were introduced. The LHA rate in every case was reduced from the average calculation by around 10%.
So you see an attack has already been made on landlords who give shelter to Housing benefit claimants.


All the cheapest properties will be taken, but I'm sure there will be some if you care to look hard enough.
What is it about my last post that you don't understand? The information is all there.

Note the bit in bold. It's government information - and you can't get better than that.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 27 Oct 17 21:50
I'll spell it out for you again :-

LHA rates are based on private market rents being paid in the BRMA which can differ from advertised rents.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 27 Oct 17 22:03
There you go - Wolverhampton
One bedroom LHA rate £373.97 per month.

http://www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/article/2813/Local-Housing-Allowance-rates

Rightmove:
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E1476&maxBedrooms=1&minBedrooms=1&sortType=1&includeLetAgreed=false

Tons of them.

Flats as well:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E1476&maxBedrooms=1&minBedrooms=1&sortType=1&propertyTypes=flat&primaryDisplayPropertyType=flats&includeLetAgreed=false

Game set and match?
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 28 Oct 17 06:02
On the contrary, a quick analysis of the market in Dr Crippen's chosen location shows the failure of LHA, even on its own terms. LHA is meant to be set at a level giving access to half of the available housing stock; in practice it becomes the minimum because there is no market pressure to supply accommodation for less than LHA. Rightmove have over a hundred one bedroom properties in Wolverhampton, six below LHA, of which two are studios. Of 109 two bedroom flats , one is £420, one at £440 and only six at £450 (LHA £454, funnily enough). There is a one bedroom above the local Ladbrokes for £450. That's the picture in a pretty depressed place like Wolverhampton, where LHA is the safety net for many landlords.  LHA is frozen because - as described above - it actually acts as an engine for driving up rents across the private sector but the taxpayer is still subsidising private landlords by £200 million a week. Think about that figure for a second, it is more than our net contribution to the EU, and we get nothing back for it. But it gets worse. To avoid tax-liabilities, that £200 million is then ploughed into acquisitions of further buy-to-let properties, where in many cases an honest family would be the underbidder.

That's why the system will never work; at its heart Housing Benefit is based on a transaction where only one party cares about the cost.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 28 Oct 17 10:59
Go on then Dr Crippen, find a property advertised for less than LHA.

Which is exactly what I did. He asked for one, I showed him many.

Yet UB is back again with his made up nonsense.

Job done I'd say.
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 28 Oct 17 11:45
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 28 Oct 17 11:51
"Unitedbiscuits is back again," unlike DrCrippen, I have never been forced to stay away. As for "job done," hardly, it took him an hour to find the exceptions that prove the rule, after everyone else had left the thread. To be fair, though, what would he really know about doing a job?

There are probably six-thousand LHA claimants with private landlords in Wolverhampton, look at the meagre choice available to them and tell me it's a free market working.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 28 Oct 17 12:25
I'm not telling you anything is working well UB, but what you propose would make matters worse and what for?
Simply to satisfy your desire to stifle free enterprise, towards your aim of a communist state?
By:
ufcdan
When: 28 Oct 17 13:33
UB you seem to be another person who follows the Polotics of envy, that said I would prefer rather than my tenant being paid housing Benifit of say £400 out of the £800 she pays. I would be quite happy for her to pay £400 to the council for a quality council house. While a big big fan of Maggie to me selling off council houses was one of her biggest mistakes.
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 28 Oct 17 21:26
Example A. The landlord has one tenant in Sussex. The tenant pays him £800 a month, and claims £400 LHA. Everyone's happy, right? Well, no, because this - typical - arrangement impacts on the whole housing market and beyond.
Firstly, the landlord gets a £400 taxpayer subsidy every month.
Secondly, as a multiple of its rent, the value of the landlord's property is boosted beyond the reach of honest house-buyers; if the landlord did want to sell, the buyer would likely be a larger btl landlord spending to avoid a tax-liability.
Thirdly, the tenant has no incentive to change her circumstances. Unlike the landlord's rent anything she earns will be taxed, so she's looking at having to work an extra fifty-hours a month just to maintain the status quo, let alone save towards getting on the housing ladder. In all likelihood, the relationship will become permanent: the tenant paying tax on her wages and passing on a good proportion of what she has left to a landlord sitting on his hands. And no tax for him. How unfair is that?

Example B. A landlord in the Midlands has a portfolio of fifteen properties - the magic number! A good accountant and an aggressive policy of further acquisition ensures that he pays less tax his tenants, most of whom are claiming Housing Benefit. This hypothetical landlord has no financial worries, what he does have are two children who are dolts. Luckily for them, the other children in their classroom, even the bright ones, are growing up in houses that he owns, and will end up paying rent to his idiot children. Anything wrong with this future?

What is lazily called "the politics of envy" is simply the politics of the possible. If you belong to generation rent, the housing problem is not intractable, the injustices can be righted, it just needs legislators to challenge the country's sick addiction to rising house prices. Which means a government brave enough to upset The Daily Mail. So not the Tories.
By:
chavman
When: 28 Oct 17 23:37
if our land was cheap our country would be poor
By:
chavman
When: 28 Oct 17 23:38
its capatalism
By:
chavman
When: 29 Oct 17 00:03
if the uk housing market prices fall,sterling will fall equivalently,the uks mainstay wealth is solely dependent on uk house prices staying bouyant.
By:
chavman
When: 29 Oct 17 00:08
the bloke owning foxtons selling before the crash said it all
By:
saddo
When: 29 Oct 17 10:46
Average house price in London when he sold out in 2007 was 300k chavvers, now it's 500k. He might have left because of the bad publicity about the crooked business methods they used.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 29 Oct 17 11:28
The politics of envy is on display in every post that UB makes.

He wants to see the whole house of card come tumbling down, and then replaced by state controls in every thing we do.
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 29 Oct 17 13:56
Never expect any individual to be anything but greedy, especially on a gambling site. It's fundamental to life. Certainly, everyone should strive for material advantage for themselves and their family, I know I do. That doesn't mean we should be tied into a society where anything our children do in their productive lives counts for nothing compared to their place on the UK housing market. We can build a better society than that, and if people sneer "politics of envy"' , it just means they can't mount a defence.
By:
Hamsterdam
When: 29 Oct 17 14:08
LHA has been frozen for 4 years since 2016 the rates were already lagging behind before this came in. You will find flats underneath the LHA rate in most areas, obviously mostly **** holes mind. A lot of landlords still want a working tenant not LHA riff-raff.
By:
Dr Crippen
When: 29 Oct 17 14:23
Like I wrote earlier. Every post from UB displays envy and resentment.

''I can't have it, so why should anyone else?''
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 29 Oct 17 14:33
Now Dr Crippen hears voices..in MY head lol.
Is he senile or trying to provoke?
By:
john92
When: 29 Oct 17 15:00
Why isn't 'the politics of vested interest' thrown about like 'the politics of envy'?
By:
bongo
When: 29 Oct 17 21:43
It's remarkable that private landlords provide social housing at lower cost than social housing providers.
How is this possible you may ask?

Look at the cost of running public lending libraries versus 2nd hand book shops or charity book-sellers
Or at the cost of the two car-ferry crossings to Orkney, one subsidised by the State, and one unsubsidised
Or the popularity of the unsubsidised Edinburgh Playhouse versus those theatres getting Arts Council handouts
Or inflation in the NHS over the last 20 years versus inflation in the costs of the opticians or the vets

Of course in the world of biscuits you would be a fool to think there was a connection between letting the free market at something compared to State intervention.
But what other explanation could there be?
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 29 Oct 17 22:03
A surprise from bongo. We all know why Dr Crippen has a double-standard about the £200 million per-week Housing Benefit subsidy but a purist of the Adam Smith Institute surely would blush to defend it. But then, it wouldn't be the only time that bongo betrayed himself by choosing the wrong side.
By:
bongo
When: 29 Oct 17 22:16
No surprise though from the revolting specimen of sock fungus that is biscuits
If he can smell a subsidy, he wants to sniff it, hence his frenzy of self-abuse over the European Union whose main fiscal policies are:
1 - landowner subsidies under the guise of farm support and the customs union
2 - capitalist subsidies under the guise of convergence funding
3 - rural subsidies under the illusion that rural areas are worse off so we'll give money to the rich rural people
4 - bureaucratic subsidies with over 1000 staffers earning more than the Prime Minister
I bet he gets hard thinking about that.
If someone wants to make themselves last longer when on the job, most people think about Mo Mowlam, but biscuits thinks about free markets.
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 29 Oct 17 22:16
And bongo's premise is not actuarilly true because council houses are assets belonging to all of us whereas private houses are not, and Housing Benefit paid to local authorities is money we pay to ourselves whereas the £200 million per-week paid to private landlords is lost forever.

I suppose he's right about the Orkney ferry, though.
By:
unitedbiscuits
When: 29 Oct 17 22:21
I'll let the juvenalia of bongo's last post speak for itself - he's plainly over-excited in an embarrassing way.
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