Value-added tenants

The government is fixated on homeownership as a way to revive poor areas with schemes like Homebuy.

This fixation is blinding it to other routes to market renewal.

One of the problems with social housing is turnover. Few areas are settled and the repeated influx of similar family types creates specific demands on an area.

Older tenants with less demanding family budgets may aspire to better living conditions, but get frustrated by constant change in neighbours. Obviously, it would be in everyone’s interest to have stable and settled communities that grow and change as family circumstances allow. However there is little inducement in the rented sector for this. Social housing has created vast numbers of dwellings that have well and truly paid for themselves. Would a reduction in rent and council tax for “paid-off properties” achieve the same goal as “Homebuy”, without reducing housing stock? A rolling reduction in rent for families that have 10 or more years settled tenure could be an inducement for tenants to stay. If tenancies lasted longer, community cohesion and community spirit might stand a better chance to prosper.

Another problem allied to turnover is the lack of esteem for some areas. Homebuy has been suggested as the means of increasing demand for homes in these areas. Yet it is often minor refurbishment by individual residents, who expect to add value to their home, that pushes up an area’s perceived “value”. This should be exploited by the social rented sector.

If tenants were to be encouraged to build extentions or use attic space in the same way as homeowners, then housing stock would become valuable rather than worn out and discarded. Too often, the landlord’s view of home improvements are as something that they are bound to have to replace or remove. Or worse, as something that will get in the way of bulk-buying repair budgets. The underlying increase in a particular property’s value gets lost. The owned housing market reflects an individual property’s value, yet social housing often gets lumped together as poor, sometimes leading to a surprise when an individual property is sold.

It is often minor refurbishment by residents that pushes up an area’s desirability

Tenants should be encouraged to spend their own money on their property in the expectation of a reward based upon the value that they add. Certainly this would need strict consultation and responsible checks, but it is not impossible. Where property asset value to lending ratios are becoming a headache for social landlords, anything which boosts house values must be in everyone’s interest.

As a tenant I have little sympathy for councils who apparently cannot afford to bring their homes up to a decent standard. Property values have increased steadily, councils seem to have an endless supply of land to sell and “poor me” has been the excuse for cutting services year on year.

If property ownership is deemed to be such a sought-after position for us poor folk, then how can it be such a bad thing for the government? The government cannot relinquish its responsibility to house those in need simply because it chose to sell off its own means to do so. Yes, the private sector has a role to play, as it always has done. But that does not include bailing out the government in every area that central funding is “unavailable”. At the current rate that government seems to be abandoning its responsibility to the community, we will shortly be managing all the social services that councils originally provided.

Perhaps we should stage a coup d’etat and “best value” out the bureaucrats.