Joseph Elliott
@J_Elliott94
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Analysis Lead at @Jrf_UK Tweeting about housing, work, benefits and poverty. Northern Irish. Views are my own.
London, England
Joined April 2014
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What’s driving England’s housing crisis?
In part, it’s because we’re now a country of *multiple* home ownership and private renters.
In the last 20 years the proportion of adults owning multiple homes doubled, the %s of 16-34 y/os buying a home almost halved. 🏘️🧵
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Has the social contract between generations been broken?
A person born in 1956 will on average have have paid £940k in tax during their life, but are forecast to receive state benefits amounting to £1.2m, net £291k.
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Sorry, you're trying to 'save' *this*? An inefficiently used, tired commercial site and large carpark?
At the expense of 4,000 new homes?
In an excellent location near transport links?
In the middle of a housing crisis?
Thank you to everyone who has signed my petitions to
#SayNOToTheEdgwareTowers
❌ Tomorrow there is a rally to
#SaveOurEdgware
outside the Railway Hotel, details are below 👇 The proposals are a total disgrace and must be stopped ⛔️
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A person born in 1996 will receive less than half that figure, receiving barely more than a person born in 1931 would have!
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New Census data shows the number of households renting privately doubled in twenty years, while the share who own the home they live in has plummeted.
This huge tenure shift has major implications for the distribution of housing wealth 🧵⬇️
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Really interesting analysis from
@duncanrobinson
in the Economist, asking whether the social contract has been broken between generations, and whether this may partly explain why millennials aren't following trends in political leaning?
NEW: conservatives have a Millennials problem.
In both UK & US, it’s not just that Millennials aren’t voting conservative because they’re young.
Every previous generation grew more conservative with age, but Millennials are not playing ball.
My column:
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Always find it so depressing how low density and inefficiently used so much space in London is..
Swathes of zones 2 and 3 are just rows and rows of low-density terraced and semi-detached homes.
OK, having pretty much reached the conclusion of my suburban density study, here's a lengthy and rather geeky explanation of how London's suburbs can accommodate 900,000 new homes through incremental intensification.
Towards a Suburban Renaissance!
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Fun fact - for the first time in history the King himself has a Labour MP, Rachel Blake - MP for Cities of London and Westminster
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Absolutely devastating increase in service charge from £94/month to £646/month, roughly 2% to 10% of take-home earnings for the average shared owner BEFORE hikes in mortgage, rent and wider bills.
Honestly this is such a scandal, some shared owners being absolutely screwed.⬇️
Lewis bought his flat from a shared-ownership scheme run by a housing association - but rising service charges mean he's now trapped in a home he cannot afford.
#london
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A few more eye-catching stats: British parents pay between a quarter and a third of their incomes on childcare on average.
One in five pensioners are in poverty. One in four pensioners live in a family with assets of more than £1m (property and pensions!).
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In the next 5 years we'll hand £70bn in housing benefit (HB) to private landlords.
In some parts of the country, over £1 in every £3 in ALL rent paid is paid through HB.
Around £1 in every £5 in HB goes to landlords providing homes that are poor quality, or even hazardous.⬇️
🗣️ Private landlords are capitalising on the housing crisis leaving taxpayers and local councils to foot the bill for poor quality properties.
📒 Our latest report sets out how socialisation can – in targeted ways – play an important role in solving the housing crisis 🔽
(1/10)
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Fixing the housing crisis requires not only a focus on new supply of homes, but a focus who owns them.
This is the at the core of the argument in a paper JRF Housing Lead
@DarrenBaxter
has published today; we need a focus on shifting the distribution of ownership of homes.
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New Northern Ireland Census data tell a story of a secularising country that is increasingly Irish & less British. Families are smaller and the population is aging.
Fewer homeowners and more private renters: bad for poverty, housing security and wealth distribution.
Thread⬇️
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ONS have published housing census data today 🏘️
Huge potential for lots of interesting analysis (another time!). For now - here’s a quick thread with some data on overcrowding, tenure change, central heating and car use which I found interesting at first glance ⬇️
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In fact, over the last twenty years, for every 4 homes built (minus demolitions) in England the equivalent of 3 of these have gone into the private rented sector.
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Watching the creeping mould spread across the bathroom ceiling, boarding up the hole in the wall the mouse snuck through, and then seeing >40% of my income leave my bank account in rent - I like to remind myself how lucky I am to be a largely risk and responsibility free renter.
The Daily Telegraph: “I’ll tell you what people should be grateful for: paying someone else’s mortgage.”
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"Families need space" and "People don't want to live in shoeboxes".
Most of these properties are subdivided into 2 or 3 flats costing over 3x what the entire property did 30 years ago.
The floorplans are the same as flats in higher density developments.
Always find it so depressing how low density and inefficiently used so much space in London is..
Swathes of zones 2 and 3 are just rows and rows of low-density terraced and semi-detached homes.
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Almost half of children in a family with an under 5 in the North East of England are in poverty, the highest of any UK nation and region.
A thread of findings from the North East Child Poverty Commission report published today. 🧵⬇️
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We've published our Poverty in Northern Ireland report today.
Here's a short thread on geography and poverty in Northern Ireland.
⬇️🗺️
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Why have British sea-fronts gone from Tourism hotspots to Housing Benefit hotspots?
Take Blackpool - along the seafront there are over 6 private rented HB claims for every 10 households (of all tenures), with over £1 in every £3 in rent paid through housing benefit.
🧵⬇️
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Every fifth home in England is now owned by someone who owns multiple homes, and a further one in ten are owned by other private owners such as companies (to rent).
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Our analysis from last year found 600,000 private renters could be lifted out of poverty if they were paying social rents instead of private rents, allowing them to keep more of their earnings and income and providing them with a more secure tenancy.
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Changes in regulation, policy and economic conditions have made becoming a private landlord (and property speculation) much easier and more attractive – the policy choices are economic conditions are mapped out in the below graph (by
@r_earwaker
)
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So who owns all the homes in England?
A fifth are now owned as additional dwellings to rent out or as second homes, including by private individuals and companies, up from a tenth twenty years ago.
The proportions owned by owner occupiers and social landlords have fallen.
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The proportion of adults owning any homes has fallen from 62% to 55%, but the proportion owning multiple homes has doubled.
The proportion and number living in the private rented sector has doubled (many paying rent to (/buying homes for) the multiple-home owners).
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Our new UK Poverty reports explains how and why poverty rates vary so much across the UK.
26% of people in the North East of England are in poverty (680,000 people), as are 25% are in London (2,260,000 people). Poverty rates are high in Wales, Y&H and the West Midlands.
🧵
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It's nearly certain then that Renters Reform and Leasehold Reform Bills are dead in the water (for now), as they don't appear in the expected last business in the Lords before Parliament is dissolved.
Hugely disappointing for so many people!! Gutting.
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Incredibly striking (and concerning!) analysis from ResFo.
*Half* of social renters, over a *third* of private renters and even over a *quarter* of those buying with a mortgage unable to put £10 aside each month for a rainy day and unable to turn the heating on when needed.
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Fewer Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X own their home than the cohort twenty years before them did; instead they're more likely to rent privately.
The graph below plots percentage point change in the composition of tenures over the last 20 years.
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You might think benefit levels are based on a logical, objective calculation of the cost of what families need.
You would be wrong - this has never been the case.
Rates are essentially arbitrarily set* and have been eroding in value (including relative to earnings as per graph)
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24% (around 750k) of ‘additional homes’ (to rent or as second homes) are owned by the 0.3% of all households who own five or more!
43% (c. 1.3m) are owned by the 6% who own one additional home.
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This mix of tenures is driving negative outcomes in society.
It's a factor driving house price inflation, and works to lock people out of the home ownership that the vast majority aspire to - a barrier to building wealth and greater security of tenure.
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Fabian Society recommending a £15bn fund over 10 years to acquire 500,000 private rented homes to be provided as social housing.
That'd be equivalent to around tenth of the private rented sector brought into social ownership. ⬇️
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An honour to receive the ThinkHouse Early Career Researcher award for our work on low-income private renters (more relevant now than ever with the direction rents are heading!).
It's such a privilege to work on issues that we care passionately about.
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The renters reform vs The bill watered
bill we were down by landlord
promised MPs
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National Audit Office report published today concludes homelessness in England at its highest level recorded (since 2000).
Identifies risk that expenditure on homelessness and temporary accommodation (TA) may bankrupt councils, as some spend up to half their net budgets on TA.
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Fascinating map of Europe by the proportion of its population who live in the capital.
2/5 in Ireland live in Dublin, 1/5 in UK live in London, 1/20 in Germany live in Berlin.
Interested in the implications this has for national economies and experiences of housing crisis..
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It accentuates wealth inequalities. 30% of the value of the housing wealth in the UK is owned by individuals (& companies) with additional dwellings, up from 13% 20 years ago.
The value of housing wealth held by this group more than quadrupled in real terms from £420m to £1.9tn.
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These changes have driven huge shifts in housing tenure over the last 40 years, and the huge growth of the private rented sector over the last two decades - reversing the late-20th Century trend of increasing home ownership.
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Almost half a million homes in England are second homes owned by households in England - one home in every fifty.
The number owned as second homes has doubled since 2008-09, according to new data from Government⬇️
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Fewer than one in ten children in families even at the *90th* percentile of household incomes go to private school.
Come on - slap a tax on it.
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We’ve got used to low interest rates over the last decade, but this week the average mortgage rate jumped to 6%.
Thread of new analysis explaining why 6% mortgage interest rates are VERY scary for family finances, particularly for families on low incomes.
🏠🧵⬇️
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The paper published today by Darren argues we need to shift the ownership of private rented homes into the hands of first-time buyers and social landlords, or other models of ownership – to deliver better outcomes for society, including:
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Since 1998, 570,000 social homes in England have been sold under the right to buy - equivalent to a seventh of social rent homes today.
The discount these homes were sold for sums to £35bn in today's money - a direct transfer of wealth from state / public to individual...
Goldsmith Street, Norwich - winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2019, 100 percent social housing, Passivhaus -and now being privatised by Right to Buy. Such a devastating indictment of that policy.
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Is the Housing Benefit bill out of control? In 1979 we spent £2.5bn on HB (2019 prices), today we spend £21bn.
Yet new research published today finds that, relative total 'housing costs', the value of all rental subsidies are much lower today than in the past.🧵⬇️
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Families on low-incomes in London, the North of England and Scotland are bearing the worst of the cost-of-living crisis.
Here's how and why
🧵🗺️⬇️
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The tenure mix and high cost of private renting is a key driver of poverty in the UK.
Our 2018 UK Poverty report demonstrates how housing costs for families with children on the lowest incomes have increased much more in real terms than for higher income families.
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A thread about the housing haves and have nots;
which explains the current state of play with housing in England and why it needs to change – with some (hopefully) interesting original analysis🏘️🧵⬇️
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Private rents are increasing by their fastest on record.
Social renters face the largest rent hike in decades from April.
Families buying their home with a mortgage face income-devouring interest rate hikes.
What does this all mean for poverty in the UK?
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Over the same period, the proportion of adults who own multiple dwellings has doubled.
Around 7% of adults in the UK now own multiple homes – either to rent out, as a second or holiday home or for another reason.
The share owning ANY homes has fallen from 62% to 55%.
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The 'suburbanisation of poverty':
High rents, insufficient benefits, loss of social housing and gentrification of largely working-class neighbourhoods result in people on low incomes being priced out and excluded from inner cities, deepening divisions between rich and poor.⬇️
🏘️ Private rentals have become increasingly prevalent in Britain in the last few decades.
📈 The sector has expanded rapidly nationwide, but particularly in coastal towns, cities and post-industrial areas.
A thread on what this means for people living there 🔽
(1/7)
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Obviously behind these headline numbers sit huge variations across regions, age-groups and by the numbers and individual value of properties owned.
For example, 80% of additional homes are owned by people aged 45 and over.
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Why focus on tenure mix?
We need to build more homes; but this takes time and won’t fix the housing crisis on its own.
A focus on the tenure mix of current homes has potential to meaningfully shift the dial on the crisis, and within a timeframe of years rather than decades.
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We've had our service charge estimate for 2024/25, and it is double what it was in 2021/22. Why?
- Buildings insurance market is in crisis (is anyone talking about this?). Market has collapsed, apparently only a single provider remains – ratcheting up costs for leaseholders.
Soaring service charges are placing an intolerable strain on leaseholders.
Greater transparency is part of the answer but we need a more fundamental conversation about how we better protect leaseholders, and particularly shared owners, from unreasonable charges.
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For an average first time buyer*, the difference between a 1.5% interest rate (Jan 22) and 5% rate (May 23) is an additional £350 a month or £4,200 a year in mortgage interest - a whopping 46% increase in monthly payments.
What's the breaking point for house prices to tumble?
The repricing in mortgage markets of the last few days in context.
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This is driven by greater reliance on the more expensive private rented sector.
More people in poverty are living in the private rented sector, often in poorer quality housing and with much less security of tenure than those in social rented accommodation.
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New analysis on poverty out today.
There is a huge disparity in rates of child poverty across the country.
Tower Hamlets, Birmingham and Manchester have the highest rates of child poverty (over 44%), the lowest rates are in Richmond upon Thames and Elmbridge (12% and 13%).🗺️⬇️
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Homes increasingly subdivided into more awkward and diminutive spaces, and streets packed with private cars.
Please can we just have so much more space-efficient higher density medium rises with curated communal green spaces?!
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Times are tough for mortgage holders, difficult for private renters, but absolutely DIRE for private renters on housing benefit.
Our new analysis finds the pool of private rentals covered by housing benefit is evaporating; down from the cheapest 30% to cheapest 18% by Sept 2022
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Three in four children in poverty in Great Britain now have a Labour MP.
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Very exciting proposals here ⬇️
If private landlords can't/ won't ensure the homes they're letting out are of decent quality, social landlords should be able to buy them up, do them up and let them as social housing.
(Currently devolving work at JRF on how to make it happen!)
Burnham unveils new powers for councils to buy up poor-quality homes and let to social housing tenants
#ukhousing
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One in five adults aged 16-64 in the UK are not working or seeking work.
This 'non-participating' group is growing, driven largely by increasing rates of ill-health.
But many want to work now or expect to in future! Thread on our new report ⬇️
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Read more in the paper published today by Darren which sets out our arguments on how to achieve this change:
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New homelessness numbers in England out today and the headline is:
*Everything* going in the wrong direction.
- Record high numbers assessed as homeless/ threatened with homelessness over the last year.
- Record high numbers in temporary accom, including numbers of kids.
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🗝️Greater security of tenure
💰More affordable housing costs
🔋Better quality and more energy efficient homes
🏠Opportunities to build wealth, and to allow people to achieve their desired tenure
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Really sobering new stats: 400,000 babies & toddlers in England live in very poor quality homes, as do one million children aged over 5 years old
1,000,000 children live in homes that have hazards such as excessive cold, fire / electrical hazards, etc. 800,000 live in damp homes
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Our perspective is that the current distribution of the ownership of housing stock isn’t working for society, with too many families stuck with in unsuitable, unaffordable homes and too many unable to achieve their aspiration of homeownership.
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Why aren’t they getting it?
Our social safety net is there for those unable to work or who fall out of work, and boosts income of those on the lowest earnings.
So why are as many as 41% of working-age adults (2.7m) on the lowest income (bottom 20%) not receiving any support?🧵
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If you want to design policy that hurts children, then maintaining the two-child limit is the way to go.
The child poverty rate in families with 3+ children climbed to almost 50% by 2019/20, following benefit cuts, freezes and caps disproportionately hitting larger families⬇️
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Society: energy price crisis, unaffordable rocketing rents, families with mounting debt and going without essentials 🔥🔥
Landlords: we're achieving record rents in London, the market is outperforming expectations 🥰🥰
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One in five men aged 29 live with their parents (wow), twice the number and proportion of women of the same age..
The share of adults aged 20-34 living with parents increased from 21% in 2001 to 28% by 2021 (Census & LFS data).
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Shifting the ownership of existing homes needs to be clearly articulated as a goal of housing policy.
The paper identifies four areas of focus:
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Finally a mention of housing in this debate!
We need more homes.
We also need to rebalance the housing market. Since 2000 the equivalent to 2/3rds of new homes build have gone into the private rented sector.
Young people can't compete with landlords to buy housing..
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Baking biscotti and chuckling as Emily Maitlis books a room at BBC Builders in Dewsbury on
#Americast
(It's cranberry and orange biscotti, and thanks to
@maitlis
,
@awzurcher
and
@BBCJonSopel
for continued education and entertainment!)
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So thrilled to have won the Thinkhouse Early Career Researcher Prize with
@r_earwaker
for our work highlighting the unaffordability of private rentals for low-income households (pertinent now more than ever) and the need for more social rent homes. ⬇️
Thank-you
@ThinkhouseInfo
!
Congratulations
@J_Elliott94
@r_earwaker
of
@jrf_uk
their paper ‘Renters on low incomes face a policy black hole: homes for social rent are the answer’ has won the
@thinkhouseinfo
#ECRP2022
prize
#ukhousing
#housingresearch
#housingpolicy
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Our
@JRF_UK
UK Poverty report, published today, explains the role of housing as a driver of poverty.
Around half of private renters and a third of social renters in poverty are only in poverty once housing costs are factored in.
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In the last 5 years, 3% of England’s privately owned housing stock was built. But 25% of it was transacted.
If harness the potential in influencing these transactions, away from private landlords to home owners & social landlords– we can achieve these better outcomes, sooner.
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New research from
@jrf_uk
published this week:
As the eviction ban in England ends, one million renting households across GB, including 500,000 households with children, are worried about being evicted over the next three months.
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Very surprised by this graph from The Times;
In Northern Ireland over half of Catholic girls are progressing to higher education, compared to only a third of protestant boys. Wonder why?
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Attempting to explain Northern Ireland politics to people in work 😱
We don't make it easy..
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This is not an inevitability, but the result of policy decision-making, or lack thereof.
We can reshape the housing market to make it work for both those who need or want affordable, safe, secure and good quality homes to rent, and for homeowners and those aspire to own!
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Calling all Northern Irish folk interested in poverty, destitution and economic insecurity.
We've launched a call for proposals to scope out how to build additional social policy capacity in Northern Ireland with a focus on tackling poverty.
Please share!⬇️
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We’re hoping to instigate debate and discussion with this paper, and we want to hear your views on, and challenges to, this argument.
Have any thoughts or reflections on this? Get in touch with us on twitter or via email (on the website).
I'm at: joseph.elliott
@jrf
.org.uk
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MHCLG have published some reports on housing in England today!
Here are some key takeaways:
➡️ Social housing is much more affordable than private renting
➡️ During the pandemic, private renters were more likely to report difficulty in keeping up with rent than social renters
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The Budget has maintained the freeze on support towards housing costs for private renters, while private rents continue to climb and asking rents soar.
Very bad news for low-income private renters.
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Striking analysis in Zoopla's latest housing report
Some headlines:
- Home-buyer demand down 50% year-on-year!
- The number of new home sales agreed is 28%
- Momentum in price inflation is falling away quickly
- Sellers accepting substantial discounts on asking prices
🏠⬇️
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3.8 million people in the UK experienced destitution in the last year, 2.5x times the number in 2017.
Highest rates of destitution are in London, other major cities and former industrial areas across the North and Midlands of England, South Wales and West Central Scotland.
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Thrilled that our
@jrf_uk
report 'Making a house a home' has been the chosen as the top housing report of the year by the ThinkHouse panel (achieving a record score from the panel!) 🎉
Top work from
@DarrenBaxter
,
@r_earwaker
and the JRF team - one to read over Christmas⬇️
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Latest data on income growth:
- Those on middle incomes did well under Thatcher and Major, those on high incomes *exceptionally* well.
- Those on lower incomes saw good income growth under Blair and Brown.
- Since 2010, nobody has seen particularly good income growth.. ⬇️
"It's been 20 years and six Prime Ministers since we saw the last prolonged period of falling poverty in the UK."
@J_Elliott94
@jrf_uk
talks
#poverty
with
@GoldbergRadio
@BylineTimesPod
from
@BylineTimes
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In every region in the UK, the share of households who own their home has fallen substantially, while the numbers who rent privately have more than doubled.
In the North East and East Midlands the numbers renting privately have tripled.
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£10 billion would buy all 42,000 homes in Rishi Sunak's constituency of Richmond.
The Government spends twice that amount on housing benefit each year - around half to private landlords.
And we argue Govt should spend even more on HB.. At least in the short term. ⬇️
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Pretty damning new evidence from DLUHC today: consistently, across most local authorities in England, a higher proportion of private rented homes are non-decent than other tenures.
In many local authorities in the North and South West over one in three PRS homes are non-decent!
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To clarify - please only email me if you *agree*.
If you disagree, the email address you want is: Darren.Baxter
@jrf
.org.uk
Thank-you.
A bumper week for important JRF work, following our work on destitution and deep poverty. See below for
@J_Elliott94
's brilliant insights on contributions to the housing crisis. We want your thoughts - get in touch here or email joseph.elliott
@jrf
.org.uk if you agree or disagree!
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The share of housing wealth captured by this group has more than doubled over the last twenty years.
The value of property wealth captured by this group has quadrupled from £420 billion to £1.9 trillion (controlling for inflation, in 2022 prices).
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