I received an email from George Clarke who is running a campaign to tackle Britain’s empty homes crisis. Something that has been going on for decades cannot be called a “crisis”, but he says that there are 350,000 empty homes, of which 85% are privately owned. He calls for A law change to give communities and individuals the power to turn abandoned properties in their local area...

Yet again, the newspapers and media are full of talk about a housing crisis. There is not. This problem goes back centuries. Something that is a permanent state of affairs is not a crisis.   Anyone referring to the term “housing crisis” is demonstrating their ignorance of the context. Poverty, unemployment, and poor quality or unaffordable housing are all manifestations of a dysfunctional...

It is reported today that the traditional spring bounce in the housing market failed to materialise, with prices falling and potential buyers remaining wary. On average, surveyors completed 15 sales each during May. Are we missing something here?

This site is right in the middle of Brighton. It has been vacant since 1986, for most of that time with planning consent for development. A few months ago it was occupied by squatters who turned it into a garden. The owners promptly woke up, applied for a Court Order and got the squatters evicted. Then they applied a scorched-earth tactic and got a few truckloads of chalk dumped on the site. This...

Louise Armitstead in the Daily Telegraph writes… “Around 350 guests have been asked to an extravagant launch party in London at the Knightsbridge development known as 1, Hyde Park , where they will be shown the apartments which reportedly start a £6.5m for one bedroom and go up to £140m for a penthouse. “Prices start at £6.5m for a simple one-bedroom flat and rise to £140m for...

Most empty homes are privately owned. Surveys by Empty Homes, a research organisation, show the majority of the owners own just one or two properties. Often they are rented homes that have fallen into disrepair; sometimes the owner has inherited the property. In many cases the owner lacks the funds or the skills to repair and manage the property. There are also many empty houses and flats owned...

“Making housing affordable” is a new contribution on housing policy produced by Policy Exchange (PE), which describes itself as “an independent, non-partisan educational charity, working with academics and policy makers from across the political spectrum, and particularly interested in free market and localist solutions to public policy questions.“ Every single one of the...

Former racing driver Stirling Moss was interviewed in the Daily Telegraph today. It is instructive – here is an extract…

Is it the roof, the bricks or the drains? “Unaffordable housing” The term still keeps cropping up. Which part of a house is not affordable? The roof? The bricks? The drains? The roofing tiles? The plumbing system? The amount builders have to be paid to put it all together? Go into any builders’ merchant and check the prices. They are all very affordable. It costs, at most, £100k...

The latest report from the Nationwide Building Society reports that “House prices strengthened their upward momentum at the start of 2010, increasing by a seasonally adjusted 1.2% month-on-month in January. The 3 month on 3 month rate of change – usually a smoother indicator of the near term trend – dipped slightly from 2.3% in December to 2.1% in January, but this primarily reflects...