Baby Boom To Fuel Housing Crisis

[Hectors House]

A surge in births in England between 2001 and 2011 will mean millions of people struggle to find housing when they reach adulthood in the 2020s, according to a report out yesterday.

The National Housing Federation says England is not building enough homes to house the children born in the first 10 years of this century.

‘Young people are trapped,’ the report Housing Britain’s future: some home truths states. ‘England’s housing crisis has stopped aspiration in its tracks.

‘Not enough is being done to tackle our severe lack of affordable housing now but looming on the horizon is an even bigger challenge for the country.

‘Five years from now, the noughties baby-boomer will be reaching adulthood, looking for a job, seeking independence and dreaming of living in their own home.’

The report points to Office of National Statistics figures which show there were 6.9 million births in England between 2001 and 2011 while Communities and Local Government department figures indicate 1.6 million homes were completed over the same period.

The federation also highlighted its own analysis which shows first-time buyer house prices will increase by 42 per cent by 2020 and rents in that year will be 46 per cent higher than they are today. According to Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures, 3.7 million young people will be living with parents by 2020.

National Housing Federation director Ruth Davison said: ‘We failed to fix the housing market for the Eighties baby-boomers because we simply didn’t build enough homes.

‘This means that, even with decent jobs, many are now struggling to raise a mortgage deposit or pay their rent.

‘But rather than learn from past mistakes, the country is still not building enough homes to tackle the problem.’

The umbrella-group calls on the government to look ‘beyond future elections and deliver a long-term house building programme that will create jobs, pump money back into the economy and give hope to millions of young people’.

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/development/baby-boom-to-fuel-housing-crisis/6527846.article

Good quote here from the comments:

Gavin Rider | 22/07/2013 2:29 pm

A couple of observations:

1) The NHF repeatedly makes irrelevant comparisons, such as:

"Last year 240,000 new households formed, but only 111,250

homes were built– fewer than half the number needed."

Wrong - NHF fails the exam.

The number of new homes needed is NOT directly equivalent to the number of new households forming, because households are also disappearing due to the death of the resident. The pertinent metric would be the NET number of ADDITIONAL households forming compared with the number of new homes being built, but that wouldn't look quite so alarming so they don't use it. Using irrelevant figures to make a story seem even more alarming than it actually is is CHEAP TRICKERY and the NHF do it all the time.

2) Building more homes is not the answer to the affordability problem if that problem is being caused by something other than a supply deficit. We have more homes in the UK than we have households needing them, so something else is causing the house price/wages disparity.

It is clear from the pricing cycles in the UK housing market that house pricing in the UK has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RATE OF HOUSING SUPPLY, so it is absurd to simply promote more supply as a way of addressing the affordability problem, as the NHF do in their document.

If newly built homes enter the housing market at prevalent market pricing they will still be just as unaffordable to first time buyers as the existing homes that are already on the market but cannot be afforded by them.

What needs to be changed are the housing market factors that have created the price explosion in the UK, and they have little or nothing to do with the rate of new housing construction.

3) Waiting lists are NOT AN INDICATOR OF THE NEED FOR MORE HOUSE CONSTRUCTION - they are primarily an indicator of the desire of rental tenants to live in cheaper accommodation with better security of tenure than they can have in the private rented sector.

Furthermore, at least half of those on the waiting lists are existing social housing tenants who have registered on the waiting lists in order to qualify for Choice Based Letting. These tenants may already be perfectly suitably housed, but they simply hope to be able to move into a more desirable home or one in a more desirable location if one becomes vacant. The presence of such people on the housing waiting lists renders them completely useless as an indicator of net additional housing need, and I wish people would stop talking about waiting lists as if they represent the size of the housing need backlog. THEY DON'T.

[SleepyHead]

Talk talk talk.

I've been hearing this "Britain needs to build more houses" for 15 years now.

It won't happen. Those in charge are making too much money destroying Britain.

[crashmonitor]

A bit optimistic suggesting that 2010-11 births will be looking for housing in the 2020s. Most of them will be getting stiffed for Uni loans or be NEATs at home by the end of the decade.

[Executive Sadman]

Todays low death rates arent going to be forever. Once the 1945-70 baby boomers start popping their clogs the death rate will stay very high for a quarter century. Might be some overlap, but a lot of housing supply will come from them over that period.

[gimble]

The report points to Office of National Statistics figures which show there were 6.9 million births in England between 2001 and 2011 while Communities and Local Government department figures indicate 1.6 million homes were completed over the same period.

As the comment you quoted points out, they obviously need to net off the number of people that died between 2001 and 2011! By my calculations about 5 million died over this period. Rather disingenuous of them!

[Executive Sadman]

As the comment you quoted points out, they obviously need to net off the number of people that died between 2001 and 2011! By my calculations about 5 million died over this period. Rather disingenuous of them!

The census doesnt break down minority races into British and non-british, but between 2001 and 2011 the white British population declined by 600,000. So theyre obviously leaving or dying. White Irish population also fell. So in those groups at least birth rates arent compensating.

[gimble]

The census doesnt break down minority races into British and non-british, but between 2001 and 2011 the white British population declined by 600,000. So theyre obviously leaving or dying. White Irish population also fell. So in those groups at least birth rates arent compensating.

I'd imagine it's largely people leaving. 60,000 a year net migration from the white British population is low given that there are 5 million Brits living permanently abroad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/brits_abroad/html/

[olliegog]

not another lot of baby boomers - don't blame them blame their parents

still you won't be the ones supporting them when the cry is heard - too many baby boomers they cost too much.

[btl_hater]

A bit optimistic suggesting that 2010-11 births will be looking for housing in the 2020s. Most of them will be getting stiffed for Uni loans or be NEATs at home by the end of the decade.

Also, many will be the result of their mother giving birth just to get the very generous benefits labour decided to bestow on them and probably don't have a hope in the real world.

[stormymonday_2011]

The article conveniently forgets that the year 2000 was the absolute nadir for the post World War 2 birth rates and that the recent 'baby boom' has only taken it back to early 1970s levels. It is nowhere near the peak of the 1960s baby boom.

Edited July 27, 2013 by stormymonday_2011

[Self Employed Youth]

The effects on the total population of the UK of this so called 'baby boom' would be a declining population.

Birth rates continue to remain below replacement level.

Personally I would not call birth rates so low that they lead to declining population a 'baby boom'.

The 'baby bust' that began in 1971 continues. In 1971 the birth rate fell below replacement level, it has remained below replacement rate ever since.

[winkie]

As the comment you quoted points out, they obviously need to net off the number of people that died between 2001 and 2011! By my calculations about 5 million died over this period. Rather disingenuous of them!

Many of these houses will have the children living in them.....children and sometimes their children's families living together with grandparents, families with their names on the council housing waiting lists.......no freed up housing there then.