Britain's Housing Crisis: What Went Wrong? BBC Documentary | dw | Ep.2 

Selling of council houses and increasing the population by over half a million a year were never great ideas

Almost a million people emigrated to the UK in 2022, Where the hell are all these people living? Can't be a housing crisis

i am from poland i live in uk from 2004 ..but life here is very expensive now cant save much money now ....is not a same country anymore

Why do they keep saying we need to build more homes? Why are facts evil? We import our housing problem at 500,000 a year - 11 million population increase since 1993. UK birthrate is going down. Without imports we need less houses, not more.

Housing has become an international issue, it’s the the same across the US, Canada, Australia and many other places. When houses stopped being homes and started being investment vehicles, the end was ensured. The reality of home ownership has changed.

12 million extra people!!!! This massive extra demand over 90% of the increase in population has caused all the problems with housing in the UK!!!!!!!

Net imigration running at 750 000 annually. It certainly is not helping.

not one commentator mentioned the elephant in the room... keep on coming over.. roll up roll up.. make sure the new arrivals bring a tent.

With millions pouring into this country every year, but house building not increasing, is it any wonder there's a housing shortage? YA THINK?

50 year mortgage is insanity

I've got an idea. Stop people coming here. Problem reduced.

I grew up on a Council Estate. My Mum worked hard so she managed to buy it but that meant that it could no longer be used to house families in need because it became privately owned and has probably been sold loads of times by now to landlords looking to make a profit. So stupid to let Social housing become Private rented with hiked up prices. Now the people in need are in Hotel rooms. No where to go an poor living standards for their children. Then now you have the working poor on top of that who will end up in Hotel rooms soon as well. Western World problems aye. People need to realise that the UK Government only cares about profit, no people so i would stop all of that Patriotism stuff ASAP

If there are 1.2 million families on social housing waiting lists - should we not ask how many and where immigrants - and most particularly, of course, the illegal variety - are going to be put up to live? It just does not make any sense whatsoever. We are always told by the media (I work in the media, incidentally) what a rich country we are. So why do millions have no roof over their heads? Why can they not afford something for themselves? Why can the authorities not afford to give them a roof over those heads? Why do we have not a single highspeed railway line in the country which invented the railways? Britain is pathetic, criminally corrupt and politically useless.

You can’t import a Newcastle every single year and expect supply and demand not to be an issue

Realtors have two doors - there's the Dog entrance for Renters and the Golden entrance for Landlords. As a Renter, you're always treated as a 2nd Class Citizen. Everyone treats you like you have a disease and you're made to feel "ashamed." And yet there would be no Landlords without us Renters. You can't have a Life without a Home. Homes are essential to mental health and well being but Governments don't care!

There is property hotspots in the UK. I fully acknowledge that there's a housing shortage overall. There is however places like London that are hotspots because more people want to be located there so this also adds to the shortage and puts up prices. This is why in these areas you will get 30 people going to view one tiny flat where the rent is £2000 pcm. Yet in my northern town there's plenty of vacant houses to buy or rent. You can buy a 3 bedroom semi detached house for £130k or a terraced house for less than £100k. Average private rent across all types of housing in the town is £600 pcm. The reason why it's so low is because nobody wants to live here. The town is pretty isolated, has poor public transport links so can't be used as a commuter town. So if you live here, you work here. That throws up the next problem why people don't want to live here. Because it's all low paid, manual jobs. There's virtually no professional jobs. Those are mainly in the cities and down south. Let's face it, most of our young people go on to university now and then afterwards go off to seek employment in those professions which so often means moving to those cities with those jobs, with higher wages but also with more acute housing shortages and where housing is even more out of reach for people. I believe this is one of the reasons why house prices are so different in one area, eg London, compared to the town where I live. If the government truly delivered levelling up whereby the good quality jobs were spread more evenly across the whole country, then the people would naturally space out more and property hotspots, particularly in our cities, could be relieved of some of the over demand.

The housing crisis will never be solved in an economic system where "Greed is good" is the mantra. If anything, it will get a lot worse as millions lose their jobs to AI and mass immigration from war torn countries and climate change. Almost all new construction is luxury units which are sold to offshore investors even before they are have been completed. Vast areas of London have been gentrified pushing rents up to level unaffordable to even middle class professionals. No government has the will to force construction of social housing. They talk the talk but will not interfere with the market. Look at the US where tent shanty towns have sprung up everywhere and many of these homeless people have jobs. The centre of many US cities have businesses/shops closing down through mass theft by the desperate homeless. The UK is fast following in America's footsteps. It looks more like the beginning of the complete collapse of society. I really think we will see riots in the near future.

It's not an accident that there aren't enough houses to go around. It's deliberate. And that's true all around the world.

Forgot the elephant in the room , mass immigration

Investors and developers need to understand they can't make huge profits indefinitely

Too many people.

Mass migration.

It is a Supply & Demand issue. It's that simple. Landlords are being driven out and selling up in massive numbers so rents are sky rocketing as the supply shrinks. You can thank the Government for that.

What went wrong? In a nutshell more people than houses to put them in! Cut migration, increase social housing that stays with the council - rather than selling it off. Regeneration of run down towns to make them an attractive alternative to more popular parts of the country. If there was a decent quality of life in Blackpool then I'd retire there from Brighton and in fact people do to save a fortune and live a lot cheaper - freeing up properties down south for those who have to go there for work. Someone I work with has sold up in Brighton and moved to Birmingham and now works part time as the property prices are cheaper and he made a fortune by buying years ago.

For all of the issues raised in this documentary, the one major change that wasn't even mentioned is the fact that huge swathes of freehold property available for sale on the open market has been gobbled up by the same kind of investment firms & hedge funds that bought large numbers of leaseholds. Previously, when buying your next home, your competition was other homeowners who predominantly had a property to sell. Obviously some will have access to more money/better mortgages etc, but to a degree there was a limit to what anyone buyer could offer. With the advent of asset management firms moving into buying freehold property & away from just investing in financial products, this has created competition for each property which effectively isn't bound by the same constraints, & has a disproportionate advantage over a standard member of the public. These properties are then either sold on a type of lease at a "reduced rate" to pensioners, or rented at exorbitant rates (which because of the terrible state of our housing sector) people have few options but to just suck it up or be homeless. Either way, the way they are structured, along with their bottomless pockets are an advantage when they buy these properties & ultimately whichever option these funds & firms choose, the asset remains theirs & constantly & consistently produces yet more wealth for them.

I'm not being nasty but leasehold property is a trap for the ignorant. Even as a teenager growing up and looking toward my future I was taught about the leasehold trap and this would be around the early 90s. If you want to own your own home then if it's possible for the individual to do it, then do what I did. I left university and started full time working but had no wife or partner or children so I continued to live at home with my mum and dad. I paid them rent once a month when I was paid but then saved every other spare penny into a high interest ISA account and savings account. I did this from the age of 21 to 34 when I finally decided to buy my own first home. At that point I had so much deposit money that the small remaining amount that I took in mortgage was given on a single person's mortgage which I still was. This was all with zero money from my parents. I know I was very lucky to have the opportunity to do it like this but if there's any young people who do have that option, then I would suggest it is a good way to get onto the first rung.

Air BNB, an American company, have left thousands homeless and long term rental prices have soared. This is all over Europe. Disgusting.

Almost a million people emigrated to the UK in 2022, Where the hell are all these people living?

The government should have had a law against how these greedy house builders behave

This all started with these homes under the hammer type TV programs. At the end of the day it’s GREED. One house is not enough? Pension’s weren’t paying out so resorted to buy to let properties. A similar documentary was aired not long after this happened in the 90’s where all these multiple house owners were crying when the housing market crashed big time and they were left in negative equity so left with all these mortgages to pay. A lot were put up for auction and they were still in huge debt. I saw this coming.

Falled to build another home 70% of my road was not born in this country it not thire not another home it thires more people 🙄🤫

Too many people. It's down to supply and demand. Population growth cannot continue at this rate. It needs to flat line and stay at this level. One out, one in. You can't keep building homes until there are no green areas left.

well its quite simple really... too much population and non enough land, house prices high wages low, how on earth does anyone expect to own a home lol

My leasehold flat has been a nightmare ever since I bought it in 2018.

I'm living in my car because it's just not financially possible to rent a house and how are you supposed to save up money to buy your own house when rent is the biggest chunk out of your hard earned wages. I'm saving hundreds on living in my car. Taxed, insured, MOTd and fuel. Storage unit fees and basic food all cost much less than my rent for the month.

It started when the councils sold off their stock ! no no one can afford them

They are breeding faster than they are laying bricks. Simple

housing crisis will never be dealt with in the UK

"caught in a rat trap & you've been conned" 😂😂😂😂😂

Just look at who is running Britain right now!

You cannot keep increasing a population at the rate we have in the last twenty years and expect the equivalent homes for them spring up from nowhere. You also cannot keep losing the agricultural land we need for food to housing or resorting to building on flood plains across the country.

Interesting and informative. Thank you.

Help to buy along with ultra low interest rates as inflated this bubble we are in. Let's not forget the stamp duty holiday which Sunak introduced during the pandemic contributed to inflating this bubble massively. With all of the QE which as created this massive inflation problem we have now house prices which will have to come down because for many people the affordability is not there anymore. I predict a crash in prices of around 20-30% over the next few years. To all you deniers about about a house price crash don't worry the bond markets will take care of this. One other thing is to stop all of these foreign investors buying properties who don't even live in the UK.

Remove leasehold properties now!

One word. Immigration. It's not just more people to house, it's some people outpricing the locals, and also the lowering of wages and conditions, and greater difficulty getting jobs

Yes, and we in AUS had similar dodgy building 'Phoenix' companies; one building of apartments at Syd Olympic Park was a disaster of shoddy concrete construction which had to be evacuated as it started to collapse. Ditto in Mascot !

Excellent documentary ❤

The main problem here is too many immigrants both legal and illegal which has driven a huge increase in population and hence demand for housing. The throwing open of our borders by Blair and Brown followed by a succession of Tory governments who lied about immigration, conning the people that it would be reduced has been the major cause of the housing crisis. Furthermore the current ridiculous, incompetent government's tax and regulatory war on private landlords, driving them out of the market, has wrecked the private rented sector and as always happens when supply cannot keep up with demand, rents have skyrocketed. All the fault of this dreadful government.

How to gain power is to promise but in reality don’t accomplish it. Yet voters keep giving these failed political parties second, third, fourth, and fifth chances. The problem is the voters.

Housing prices are far too freaking high in Britain as well as America. I wonder what it could be ? Is it GREED!

What went wrong? Gullible people voted against their better interests.

We have plenty of greedy crooks in the US too.

Believe it or not the same is applying in AUS ! Housing cost has accelerated and the 'quality' of development has worsened. Blame the councils, or the State Governments for allowing the subdivision of housing land into tiny little blocks of down to 500M2 lot size is crazy in this 'wide brown land' ! Stupid, I grew up in middle ring Sydney on a (corner) land block of 18x50m (900m2) which was slightly larger for the area, but not exceptional. Like Britain, land sizes have shrunk, and house sizes have got bigger due to more demands for facilities by owners/purchasers. This is on newer stock of 2 storey houses, but there has been a huge apartment building boom in major AUS cities; some terrible some luxurious for the upmarket.! Go bush is the answer; get out of Syd/Melb/Bris/Can/Adl/Pth ! Country houses are so much bigger and cheaper.

When you have a population increase in a very small country of around 15 million from the mid sixties to now and post war housing of such low quality it’s barely fit for human habitation you’re going to have problems.

ALL THOSE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE, GET RID, NO FOREIGNER TO OWN ANY OF OUR PROPERTIES, BRITISH ETHNICS FIRST FOR A HOUSE, OTHERS CAN LIVE IN A CARAVAN.

Economic investigator Frank G Melbourne Australia is still watching this very informative content cheers Frank as subscriber 😊

Make a rule 1 person can only buy 1 house .... One house per person wht eva your age !!! No matter how big or small it is

The young people want liberal policies and now they have to put up with the problems it brings. I`m pleased I was young when the UK was normal. House paid off and working 24 hours a week at 50. Good times!!!!

Its a global problem . The greedy corporation r causing rising rents and expensive properties . There isnt enough affordable housing, a global homeless crisis, crime everywhere, and government dependency ,for the lower classes

People should move to near by suburbs if needed instead of buying a leasehold property

Hard to understand from across the Pond about the argument there is too much immigration. When one does family history research, trying to locate the tiny ancestral villages, you know, often they are listed as 550 inhabitants in 2001 followed by only 350 in 2021. Is it everyone wants to live in cities, or what? Seems a disconnect there. Probably enough housing in those dying rural villages but who wants to live there when there are no jobs etc? Same rural problem in the US too, yet it immigration is used as an excuse to build fewer houses.

Wouldn't help-to-buy just inflate housing prices?

Standard BBC gaslighting.

What went wrong was allowing too many legal immigrants in ...we do not have the infrastructure to keep accepting a never ending stream of people and their families...pretty common sense really....

We don’t have a housing problem‼️We have a POPULATION problem‼️

All the MPs that been in the last 10 to 20 years had to blame in my opinion

Let them buy a house is like saying let them eat cake.

They keep on saying own your own home but not helping anyone to do that. Time and time again.

UK National Debt Surpassed £1 Trillion Mainstream media headlines today are focused on Britain's record national debt, which just surpassed £1 trillion, a figure that can only exponentially increase unless the entire mechanism of Government finance is overhauled. The truth however is much worse, factoring in all liabilities including state and public sector pensions, the real national debt is closer to £4.8 trillion, some £78,000 for every person in the UK.

Brexit should have coincided with a vast reduction in immigration, an audit of people abusing the entitlement programs, tax reductions, subsidies and incentives to create affordable housing, new businesses and jobs.

I will never understand why flammable cladding could pass building regulations?

Typo corporations

There is no housing crisis what there is is an overpopulation crisis a country this small should only have 10 million people but unfortunately we have about 80 million crammed in here and it's only going to worse year after year until we end up like Bangladesh

Pride before big fall

The biggest problem has always been how governments has been in bed with big corporate builders. All they have ever needed to do was to support small builders who would have invested in their staff and produced a better standard of properties because they would have reputations to protect. But instead they introduced all the red tape big business wanted that would hider those in the trades who were capable to succeed and grow. Many, like myself walked away from the trades and as a result took our knowledge and experience with us.

It is the same here in Canada. My son is 37 years old. He will never own his own home. I live on my savings and 600 dollars a month in government old age pension. My rent was1400 dollars a month for a tiny one bedroom apartment. I am moving to a 150 square foot bachelor apartment for 980 dollars a month. I am one of the fortunate ones. I will be okay for the remainder of my life if I live very simply. I need to watch how much food I buy, because the prices for food go up every week. The groceries I paid 80 dollars for last week were 90 dollars this week for the same food. Landlords, developers, and grocery chains are making record profit off the backs of the people. How far down does our quality of life have to go before we simply stage a revolt? The rich are laughing at us. It is time to take back our lives for the sake of our children.

The problem here is, simply put [ CORPORATE GREED.]

I live in Scotland in a tenement. We don’t have leasehold here it’s medieval. There are rules about tenements and service charges are reasonable.

Yes, really bad long term national housing policy. Simply too few houses. Or one could unfairly argue too many people. (Thank God this isn't Russia or Putin would have a quick cure for the latter).

there are nearly 30 million dwellings across UK, all you need to do is convince 1.2 million families to share with another 1.2 million and have their rent drop by half and additional tax exemptions... so simple.

What’s better renting or to do Shared Ownership? (These are my only two options at the moment, I can’t buy a freehold atm)

Leaseholds are THE BIGGEST CON! Never go for a leasehold! Even in a flat, you might as well rent, as you own nothing but time and that's pointless when you're a mortal who will die and can't pass the property on to someone else!!!

When I say that I have a policy that would make housing affordable once again in under a year I'm not joking and it is simple; One House Per Household. Ie. If you own the home you live in, thats it. You cap the number of homes individuals are able to own. If you own multiple homes you are forced to put them on the market or you get taxed 10% of the houses value every year. Housing societies (the private council house companies) would be allowed to carry on as is and the buy to let would be scrapped so they don't continue to bleed houses. And regional bodies would be established to take on the responsibility of running councils houses as councils do not have to means to run the council houses anymore. In less than a year, houses would go down conciderably and people would finally be able to get on the housing market. Houses that you inherited you wouldn't get taxes on for 10 years of inheriting them. After that you either move into them or sell them. You could rent them out if you wished. but you would only have a 10 year window to do it.

In Australia both Labour and Liberal Coalition governments have divested from social and affordable housing for decades - we are now seeing the results of this long term neglect. What did they expect?

Well I managed to buy a house in 2019. I started saving in 2017 and worked two jobs, built my credit and got a mortgage. I had no previous savings. So it was possible back then and is possible today.

WHAT HAS GOVERNMENT TO DO WITH IT ? If it must be in involved why not rejuvenate areas like the north east where it killed employment and property has been abandoned ?? WHO HAS A VISION FOR THIS COUNTRY ?

A 50 year mortgage only works if taken out at 17 years old.

I think some people of other regions/countries/nations went to stalk and gossip, then they became greedy and competitive, then they “wanted” to “yeet” or “throw” the native people out from their own homes and even families to replace them to squeeze “in” the native’s creations and memories…

I've just turned fifty eight, & I'm still trying to get on the property ladder!!! What's new???

Used to love sat morn kit when it was yours Wannasee a man that cam multitask. Stick with your unique talents pal don’t follow the others you don’t need to. Best wishes for future projects from aanotheryorkie that loves to watch your art.

The Brits is always good with speeches, bless them. The Maths is simple really, if you see housing is a market, property is changed hands for profits, then dont be surprise that it goes through boom and bust cycles. During pandemic, there was a deluge amount of cheap credits flooded the market so everything is up in prices. If u want to see what s the bust cycles looks like, look at Japan. If you decide that housing is a right, as many European would say, then walk the walk, make profiteering on property market alot less enticing, stop prop the market up on every down turn and stop taxing first home buyers. I have property investment, so I'm not say it out of spite. It seems like most gov are not prepared to tackle this issue.

Also, hands up who is saving into a Help To Buy account and still can't afford a house! Yippee!

King Charles and the Royle family have way to much land maybe he can donate a portion to food banks to grow vegetables for families and what about abandoned homes mansion s higher taxes or take over by the state I watch alot of abandoned RU-vid rs and there a thousands abandoned in England nature taking over and being wasted just a thought

This issue is all around the world, what are we doing to our young future generations? The world markets have to stop taking precedence over humanity, world governments need to start looking after the people like they use too, I will be voting for politicians that care about people, I hope others will join me in that quest. ❤

There are talk and no action, let the people down in my opinion

Gread has destroyed everything. If we feed more to the pig will greed end? Obviously not.

There's less time and money for the well being of ordinary British people because the British government prioritises serving the US geopolitical interests over UK national interests. More and more hard working British taxpayers' money will be burnt in battlefieldsnwhere the US is involved.

Mrs Truss was the best UK's pm. Why was she forced to go so quickly? Was that an act of notorious british democracy?

Home ownership is very important.♥️🏡🌻🧑🏻‍🦼

Tl;dr version - tories, nimbys, buy to let landlords, right to buy scheme, Cameron, Thatcher, Boris.