Solve the housing 'crisis' in 100 ways

September 27th, 2022

100 ways to solve the housing crisis and it is not that complicated! In the United Kingdom.

So let's start by defining the issue, simply put, there are not enough well-designed homes to go around for everybody in the UK, at a price that can be afforded and we’re not discussing here affordable housing (Which is a misnomer, will expand at future date).

Let’s caveat these homes, which should be easily paid for through employment or funded by those that can't work through reasonable housing support, so that is what needs fixing. In addition, to the monetary considerations, we should expect these homes to be of high quality, insulted, should improve well-being, and enhance the residents' lives. These considerations could include simple issues such as ceiling heights, room sizes, and access to outdoor space.

For this blog, we are defining solving the housing crisis as making housing affordable:

- Housing costs should be at most no more than 20% of the household income (including all bills)- Housing costs for retirees and for those unable to work should be a big fat zero (excluding bills, either by having no mortgage or supported living)- No person is homeless, and yes nobody living on the streets (Everybody has at least a room)e:

Most of the solutions we are writing about here at SHEDyt are well-known and in some cases simply lifted from elsewhere. We are not the originator of many of the ideas below to solve the lack of homes issue, though what we will attempt to do is document them under one blog and provide examples of articles written by others in the sector. We believe solving the so-called housing crisis is not one silver bullet solution, though can be achieved through a series of interventions and myriads of progressive ideas, coming together.

The main solution centres around resolving the supply and demand imbalance.; We also need to improve innovation in the sector plus make the market work in the interest of the occupiers, not just businesses involved in housing. In addition, the housing market needs to work for occupiers through appropriate government interventions such as taxing or granting funding for remediation or improvements. Ultimately, the 'group thinking' that homes should forever be going up in price, by doing nothing, needs to end and whilst we’re at it let’s reimagine the yearly farce of house price predictions; Instead let’s focus on the number of homes fit for habitation or exceeding needs instead. We purposely use the word ‘price’ in the previous sentence and not value, so to clarify by adding an extension, doing a great interior design refit, or adding solar panels, then yes we agree, the home should increase in price, as it has been improved by creating value.

The last point we’d make is we need to see political will and in general, none of this can be solved without it. What politicians need to get their heads around is that the electorate demographics will change over time and those living in precarious homes are unlikely to vote for a party that put obstacles in place to have a secure home tenure, either owned or rented.

This blog series is apolitical, focused on the United Kingdom though is relevant to many other countries and in most cases besides such considerations as planning laws. SHEDyt is a design-led tech business focussed on the real estate sector and as a private business we have zero affiliation to any party nor take donations; We aim to simplify home management through the creation of a digital homeowner manual and connected property experts marketplace.

Headings/Titles for 100 solutions to the housing crisis are below (without building on green fields) and we’ll populate more detail with topic blogs in the coming months:
001 - Build on surface car parks
002 - Build higher, taller
003 - Infill everywhere
004 - Backland development
005 - Population distrubtion
006 - Two story loft exertions
007 - Agree immigration numbers to match/be lower than the rate of new builds
008 - Bring back terraces
009 - Build homes above shops
010 - Builder's home is closer to streets, not wide roads
011 - Incentivise downsizing
012 - End Help-to-Buy
013 - End Right-to-Buy
014 - Incentivise better-designed streets
015 - Bring back empty homes
016 - Remove parking requirements and minimum
017 - Tax further second properties, properly each month
018 - Reform Council Tax to a Property Value Tax
019 - More planning officers
020 - Increase planning fees
021 - Add further permitted development rights
022 - Tax second home purchases
023 - Provide grants for brownfield decontamination works
024 - Enable local authorities to build
025 - Compulsory purchase homes left empty
026 - Have a proactive not adversarial planning system
027 - Enable airspace developments
028 - Ban leasehold
029 - Improve property management efficiency
030 - Tax empty homes
031 - Build a digital home manual
032 - Reduce construction waste
033 - Build at a higher density
034 - Build beautiful
035 - Axe privacy rules
036 - Build higher ceiling heights
037 - Professionalise property management
048 - Increase MMC capacity
049 - Permit basements
050 - Build on or over train station car parks
051 - Convert rows of garages, to rows of homes
052 - More office to residential
053 - Stop objections around ‘in keeping with the area’
054 - Repurpose, end demolitions
055 - End objections around home values
056 - More BTR co-living
057 - Enable HMO
057 - Build over train tracks
058 - Sink overground to underground
059 - Create streets, close roads
060 - Restrict purchase to owner-occupiers, not investors
061 - Holiday homes
062 - Enable more SME developers
063 - Provide direct funding to builders
064 - Train more Trades
065 - Landlord register, let’s declare all income
067 - Make housing affordable, not building affordable
068 - Stabilise population
069 - Reduce the development of some legislation, not all
070 - End London weighting
071 - Unify Local Housing Allowances (LHA)
072 - Create a public register of rental homes
073 - Tax the monarchy’s property
074 - Stop holding properties via offshore trusts
075 - Allow rental payments to be considered for mortgages
076 - Supertax landlords
077 - Reduce the need for ‘forever renting’
078 - Provide incentives for private landlords to sell to tenants
079 - Government backed deposits
080 - Solar roofs, backed by government grants
081 - Incentivise deed splitting
082 - Bring back minimum room size requirements
083 - Create river homes
084 - Enable floating homes
085 - Build on stilts
086 - Build over schools
087 - Build within hospital grounds
088 - Build over roads, sink the road
089 - Creat floating homes
090 - Build underground
091 - Repurpose
092 - Build around sporting stadiums, Oval, front stands behind properties
093 - Densify suburbs, see Stamford hill example
094 - Land tax
095 - Change highways safety rules
096 - Negate traffic generation rules
097 - Ban kickbacks & regulate managing agents
098 - Ban marriage value
099 - Ban ground rents
100 - Use Technology
SUMMARY - Political, Design, and Technology choices we make

The above are the opinions of the SHEDyt team, we may have got some things wrong and have missed many other great ideas, are we being naive? Feel free to contribute.

(B054)