Talk:Housing in the United Kingdom

Historic construction
Added graph for historic purchases by sector. Confirms the decline in new dwellings purchases since 1970.

John15CM (talk) 14:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

rent for a dwelling
Renting from the private sector is now the most common form tenure for new households. Please help and fine citations for claims about rents. I know from personnel observation they true, but need references. A graph of the rent of a typical semidetached 3 bed council house in central London from 1945 to present, in actual pounds and 2014 pounds would be very informative.

John15CM (talk) 11:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Tomintoul (talk) there is good stuff in the article but in parts there is a systemic bias to tenants POV. Made addition to move the article to NPOV.

91.216.55.150 (talk) 12:07, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately 91.216.55.150, while I agree with much of what you have written, it is unreferenced and will have to be deleted unless you can add a citation. Tomintoul (talk) 17:40, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality of article
Much of this article fails the neutral point of view test. It is very pro-tenant and anti-landlord in parts. Tomintoul (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree. I will edit to move to NTV.

But we do want to do this by ignoring the facts. Rents have increased faster than wages, especially in then South. And this was not predicted by NeoLiberal economic theory. There are rogue landlords who fail to do repairs, and under current legislation tenants have no effective redress.

In the eras of the fair rent acts their were rogue tenants, who would go the rent officer and get a fair rent set at less than they had agreed to, and then sublet the rooms in the property for far more than the fair rent. And Landlords had no effective legal redress. But now days the balance of power is favor of the Landlords.

John15CM (talk) 12:19, 20 January 2016 (UTC)


 * There is lots of good stuff in the article, but in addition to the landlord/tenant aspect there is subtle bias elsewhere. Property topics often attract strong feelings and we must be very careful about maintaining NPOV and not interpreting 'facts' to suit a particular perspective. Tomintoul (talk) 12:37, 20 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Also, there are many statements/claims that are unreferenced. Citations must be added.Tomintoul (talk) 12:52, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I accepted this. Many of the statements/claims that are unreferenced are about the systems before 1979, before the mortgage, rent and currency markets were deregulated. On line sources for this period are not so good. Next time I go to British Library I will get some citations John15CM (talk) 10:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)


 * John15CM I appreciate you have said you will make your latest addition NPOV later, but that is not really acceptable in terms of Wiki policy. The thrust of this article is becoming increasing anti-landlord, anti-investor and anti capitalist – all in all a strong left-wing perspective.Tomintoul (talk) 12:28, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about initial draft not being NPOV. I have added citations for statements which I believe might considered to display lefwing bias. I would like to put in statements which put  the property investors view point. But I am having difficulty finding references to support such statements. Even the right wing press, mail, telegraph, spectator has turned against property investors, especially foreign investors. If you know of any good articles which put the property investors case if would great if you could improve the article adding statements  with citations showing how property investors have had a beneficial effect on the market.

The article is not anti capitalist. The great success in UK housing was 200,000 + a year good quality houses the capitalist enterprise built for owner/occupiers in the 50s, 60s, 70s. You can be pro capitalist and still believe that something has gone wrong with property market in the South of England.

Similarly on question of tenant landlord bias. I would like to see statements with good references giving the Landlords case added to article. But whilst it easy finding articles showing the problems tenants are having, it is difficult finding material showing that the rental market is working satisfactorily, and Landlords performing a useful function well. As far as I know the UK is unique in Europe in having symmetrical termination rights between landlord and tenant. I know in theory this should work well, but I can not find evidence that it does. It is not anti landlord to believe that in the UK there could be a badly regulated market which is allowing rogue landlords to profit from tenants.

John15CM (talk) 14:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

To Tomintoul (talk) thanks for proposing to request other editors look at article to ensure NPOV. This will be useful.

Far from using sources to support a particular political, point of view. The direction the article has taken has been led by the sources. Before I starting researching for the article, I thought that the tenants who had trouble with repairs were council tenants, I remembered that this was the case in the 1980s. But now when you search for online sources of tenant/landlord problems you find reports of problems tenants in the private sector are having. And little mention of council tenants.

Also before I researched the article I thought the councils in the 1950s, got big subsidies for building council houses. Research revealed they did not. Compulsory purchase programs of slum dwellings provided cheap building sites, as did bomb sites. Council houses were cheap to build because land was cheap. They did not need to build dwellings in multi story apartment blocks, which are expensive to build, but used less land. Instead, as land was cheap, they could build semidetached houses which can be build on mass cheaply. In 1950s, a new semidetached house cost the council ~£(2012)55,000. Far from needing a subsidy, building council houses for rent was income generator for councils, It increased their rental income, and their rate income.

John15CM (talk) 10:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Property Speculation Ethical
Dispute: "nothing illegal or wrong in property speculation". Agree that property speculation is legal, but does that make it ethical? Many believe that it is wrong for a man who owns dozens of properties to keep some empty to maintain liquidy. There are many couples in London who want to start a family but can not afford to buy or rent a family home and are having to live with their parents of parents in law. Why is this right when there are empty properties available.

Property Speculation Useful
Dispute: [Property speculator play] a socially useful role, in ensuring the liquidity of the property market. Agreed, that this is what the theory behind the Washington consensus says but is the theory correct? The theory did not predict the four fold house price rise in London. There are alternative theories. One of which is, that speculators create a shortage by taking property out of use, and then profit from the prices the shortage creates. John15CM (talk) 13:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Pictures
Adding pictures. An article of housing should well illustrated with pictures of the typical housing types. The article Public housing in the United Kingdom does this well. This article is becoming South of England centric. Picture of typical housing in Scotland, Wales and the North of England could add balance.

John15CM (talk) 10:33, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality/original research/synthesis
One particular editor has put an enormous amount of work into this article and it is both informative and highly referenced. He/she has accepted it is not neutral POV and is doing further work on this. However, I do have concerns that the way the source material has been assembled appears to be taking a moral/ethical stance on the inequality/unfairness of the current state of the UK housing situation and is presenting a case for change. Tomintoul (talk) 10:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The NPOV problem is real. See for example sections 6 and 7.1 where the sort of reliance upon an individual pathetic story is a feature of tabloid journalism, not encyclopedic writing,   Similarly, a generalization on housing conditions is apparently left to be supported by ref 41, which is an account  of 55 people, an account furthermore that does not include the comparison made in our article.   And "search suggests that overcrowding adversely effects physical and mental health, and child development" is editorializing.


 * The repeated use of "There is no agreed explanation as to why the Neoliberal theory of economics does not account for the facts of the British housing market." is facile overgeneralization which the reader is apparently expected to take on trust. Similarly, the steady line for 2008 to the present in "Housing affordability" (which should really be labelled Mortgage payments as percentage of take home pay," and the declining real home prices in 2007 to the present would seem to contradict the repeated statements that  what the article terms " the Washington Consensus"  still holds (perhaps current UK use of that term  is different, but  our article on it does not support its applicability to developed countries)  DGG ( talk ) 05:23, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for comments they are helpful. I agree that Wikipedia must not rely individual pathetic stories. On the overcrowding issue [6], The source for this is not such a story but reference 34 From the Department of communities and local government. This reported an increase in over crowding from 63,000 218,000 household over 8 period year from 2006 to 2014 by the bedroom standard. The point of quote was to illustrate the bedroom standard, which is basically people who have to share a bedroom unwillingly. Wikipedia, is not like a traditional encyclopedia, there is space to illustrated statistics, with pictures and case studies.

I agree that claim that there are people living in very poor housing conditions in the UK needs better reference than 41. The problem is that most of those living in these conditions are undocumented migrants, working in the cash economy, details of their living conditions are not picked up in government surveys. I will add a phrase along the lines of the extend of such severe overcrowding is unkown.


 * I din't say the information about overcrowding needed to be removed, but the two quotes should be removed, the one in that section and the one in Physical quality. They're not encyclopedic material.  DGG ( talk ) 16:08, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The two quote have been removed.

John15CM (talk) 10:37, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the error in the labeling of the graph on mortgage repayments. Your suggested name is better. I will change in article, and also in article affordability of housing in the united kingdom where it came from.

On the Washington consensus point. In my original draft I called it the Thatcher/Blair consensus, which was a philosophy and policies which all the UK poetical parties in the UK agreed on after Blair became leader of the Labour party. In the case of housing these were that, local government should not build dwellings, rent controls should be abolished, there should be symmetrical tenancy agreements, the mortgage market should be deregulated, of capital controls should be abolished, and foreign investment in UK property encourages, there should be no tax relief on mortgage payments and no welfare state payment of mortgages. It was suggested I change it to the Washington consensus as these changes were part of an international trend. In view of you comments perhaps it would be better if where change to Thatcher/Blair consensus.

I have studied the Washington consensus articles and DGG( talk )is right. The consensus which prevailed in the the UK post '79, should not be called the Washington consensus. As well as the belief in free markets, a characteristic in the UK of the post '79 position, was a consensus that the powers of local government should be greatly reduced, this was a UK phenomenon. Major rewrite required, all references to Washington consensus removed. A whole new set of references to cite must be found, It wont be quick.

John15CM (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the confusion caused by the graph on real house prices ending in 2012. There was a fall in real house prices from 2007 to 2012, but by 2015 real house prices are higher than in 2007. The text was written on this basis. I will update the graph to show the situation up to 2015.

The article does take any position as to what has caused the over sixfold increase in real house prices since 1979. All that it says that it was not predicted by the neo-classical economic theory. I do not think it has to be taken on trust that no such predictions were made, as is public knowledge. I am not sure why mentioning the failure to predict the large rise in real house price should be be considered an over generalization.

John15CM (talk) 16:20, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This article has much potential but also many issues. I'm not at all familiar with this topic but I think that the article should not put at all emphasis to the failure of neo-classical theory in predicting the rise in prices as no other school of economic thought could have predicted it any better. It is peripheral and also POV. Most theoretical models are based on ceteris paribus assumptions and can not be used to credibly predict future values of variables, such as price of housing, as ceteris paribus assumptions do not hold in the real world. Economic forecasting is not easy. Even the most sophisticated statistical autoregressive models are able to produce only moderately accurate predictions in quarterly terms at best. 36 years is out of the reach of any theoretical or econometric model. There's simply too much noise in the world we live in. ViperFace (talk) 23:25, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. I agree the failure of neo-clasical economic theory should not be emphasized, that is a POV. In the rewrite, I am in middle off, I will follow your suggestion and point out that noise means that no theory enables the prediction of house prices thirty years hence in a deregulated housing market.

John15CM (talk) 21:08, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you possibly working on your Master's Thesis on this topic John15CM? I'm asking because this article kind of reads like someones' thesis and that is probably the main problem. While WP:Original Research and WP:Synth is something one might have to do in order to write one's thesis they must be avoided in encyclopedic articles. WP articles are supposed to be written in WP:summary style which would mean not adding too much detail. I would consider speculating why any economic theory fails in this article to be simply off-topic. I would say it's appropriate to mention that the government has followed certain economic in different eras, but discussing the successes or failures of the policies would be out of the scope of this article. Then again, I'm relatively new here. I'd like to see more experienced editors helping you out here. ViperFace (talk) 01:46, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. I hope to finish a write up this week then I will get back to Housing and correct the errors an omissions that have been noted. You are right, stating the policies that dictated housing construction is  needed, but discussing   success/failure of policies is off topic and should be removed. This debate belongs in a different article.

John15CM (talk) 22:02, 29 February 2016 (UTC) I have got back to making all the corrections and improvements which have been suggested. I removed reference to Washington consensus as I agree that this was confusing. Instead I refer to a new article I started, based on the Washington consensus, called Thatcher Blair Consensus. Still got to remove stuff which was noted to be off topic. John15CM (talk) 11:20, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Confusing and unclear problem
Agree with the confusing and unclear tag. Propose to try resolve problem by adding an overview section, and section housing stock. Then moving material to more appropriate sections, and adding anchors for forward and backward references.

See how it goes. Hopefully it will be better.

John15CM (talk) 09:04, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Energy efficiency section
The energy efficiency section is not a good summary of the main article it references. Will try to improve it.

John15CM (talk) 10:57, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

A magnum opus but still not neutral
John15CM, the amount of effort you have put in here is spectacular, but the article is still far from NPOV. There is a subtle left-leaning, anti-investor, anti-landlord bias throughout the article. It is clear you are of the opinion there is great iniquity in the housing market. More work needs to be done to improve neutrality.Tomintoul (talk) 07:34, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

If you believe that my opinion is that there is an inequity in the housing market, then clearly the article is failing the NPOV test. The text of a wiki article should not reveal the opinion of an editor. There might be an unintentional bias in selection of sources. I rely on sources which are not behind paywalls. I can not give the pro investor, pro landlord case without being able to cite sources.

I hope to be able to get British Library soon, and then I have access to everything. And I will be able to find so good quotes that make the case for landlords and investors

So I agree with you, more work needs to be done to improve neutrality, but hopefully we will get there.

John15CM (talk) 09:18, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Large chunks of non-neutral, unsourced opinion
There are huge chunks of non-neutral, unsourced opinion. I will remove them, and if anyone wants to add them back in with sources then they can do so. If there is something which is referenced, but the reference is not clear, please let me know. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 10:27, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

This article remains non-neutral. References are synthesised to produce an anti-landlord, pro-property-taxation POV. I have made a few changes but much work is still to be done. Tomintoul (talk) 15:07, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't notice any bias in this article. Which parts of the article need to be revised? Jarble (talk) 23:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)


 * LOL! Jarble that comment from Absolutelypuremilk is three years old and mine is nearly a year old – rather a lot of work has been done on the article since then!Tomintoul (talk) 09:37, 6 May 2019 (UTC)