Following a recent trip to the library I've been reading Peter Apps' new book Homesick, subtitled "How Housing Broke London And How To Fix It". It's very good, as you'd expect from an Orwell Prize winner, and also forensic in picking through cause and effect alongside numerous real life examples of housing misery.
Focusing on the first half of the book, i.e. residential breakage, here's my summary of the historical reasons leading to where we are today. Think of it as bulletpoint notes, were you ever planning to write a (shorter) essay on the subject.
1980s
• Depopulation as families relocate outside London
• Average house costs 3-4 times average annual wage
• 35% of Londoners in social housing, only 15% renting privately
• Margaret Thatcher leads drive to boost home ownership
• Significant 'Right to Buy' discounts for council tenants
• GLC scrapped, reducing oversight
• Regeneration of post-industrial sites, e.g. Docklands
• Social housing to be provided by private bodies
• Introduction of 'assured shorthold tenancies'
• Deregulation allows banks to offer larger mortgages
1990s
• London's population rising again
• Interest rates soar, many default, house prices fall
• Cuts to council housing and maintenance budgets
• Institutional ownership in steep decline
• 'Buy-to-let' mortgages introduced
• Shared ownership offers a step onto the housing ladder
• Housing becomes a safe profitable investment for private landlords
• Social housing increasingly only for the marginalised
• Interest rates fall, house prices rise again
• Poorer tenants replaced by those who can pay more
2000s
• Drive to build tall residential towers
• Wholesale transfer of housing stock to housing associations
• PFI contractors carry out maintenance on the cheap
• Estate regeneration often means a reduction in social housing
• Houses in Multiple Occupation allow landlords to make more profit
• Mortgage debt increases unsustainably
• Inadequate maintenance of social housing
• Fewer family-sized homes built
• More Londoners renting than in social housing
• Average house costs 8-9 times average annual wage
2010s
• Austerity sees huge cuts to inner London council budgets
• Sales of new flats opened up to foreign investors
• Move towards "affordable rents" and "affordable housing"
• 'Help To Buy' assists well-off housebuyers and raises house prices
• Housing benefit capped, then frozen
• Poor construction blights many new homes
• Estate regeneration falters for lack of funds
• Developers cynically reduce proportion of affordable housing
• Largest council houses sold off to raise funds
• Inadequate cladding kills 72, then makes thousands of private flats unsaleable
Since then there's been a nasty spike in rent increases, a hike to mortgage rates from historic lows, a rapid increase in households in temporary accommodation, the inexorable rise of for-profit investment companies, the hollowing out of central London, an intense focus on student accommodation and a wider collapse in house-building, all making it increasingly awkward and expensive to live in London if you didn't get on the housing ladder decades ago. But that's all in the second half of the book, along with looming future issues and potential solutions.
£20 is quite a lot for a book, however good, but about half the price of subscribing to Peter's Substack and a mere drop in the ocean compared to your next rent/mortgage payment. Good luck out there.
Following a recent trip to the library I've been reading Peter Apps' new book Homesick, subtitled "How Housing Broke London And How To Fix It". It's very good, as you'd expect from an Orwell Prize winner, and also forensic in picking through cause and effect alongside numerous real life examples of housing misery.
