>London has a total of 87,731 vacant homes, making it the top city in the UK for the prevalence of empty houses. With house prices averaging £1.49m in the capital, the cost of vacant homes is approximately £130.8bn.
>
>A recent [study by CIA Landlord Insurance](https://www.cia-landlords.co.uk/news/vacant-homes-and-their-impact-on-the-housing-market-crisis/), which looked at the UK housing crisis and the increasing number of empty homes, analysed the impact that inhabiting vacant homes could have.
>
>The brownfield land availability in cities has also been analysed to reveal which cities would benefit the most from further development. This is in response to the high demand in properties within the UK as well as house prices being exacerbated due to the number of vacant homes in the UK. …
I’m looking to buy. Lots of overpriced empty homes that have been sitting on the market since September, with buyers holding on for the megabucks they have been promised
Little reminder:
>openDemocracy: [A quarter of Tory MPs are private landlords](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/quarter-tory-mps-are-private-landlords/)
>
>‘Clear conflict of interests’ as 115 MPs earn thousands of pounds by renting out property
>
>-
>
>In total, 115 (18%) MPs across all parties have declared earning money from rent, with Tories making up the vast majority. This compares to around 3% of the UK’s adult population, meaning MPs are roughly six times more likely to be landlords.
>
>The percentage of landlords rises to 27% among MPs appointed as ministers or whips – including seven of the 25 MPs who attend Cabinet. …
>
>*Martin Williams* 22 July 2021
That’s like 3 houses in central London.
The Landleech and Pensioners’ Party made squatting illegal to ensure that these properties stay empty.
> London has a total of 87,731 vacant homes, making it the top city in the UK for the prevalence of empty houses. With house prices averaging £1.49m in the capital, the cost of vacant homes is approximately £130.8bn.
I’m not sure how valid their maths is, particularly the £1.49 million per house. Right Move says
> Properties in London had an overall average price of £689,544 over the last year. The majority of sales in London during the last year were flats, selling for an average price of £528,914. Terraced properties sold for an average of £771,152, with semi-detached properties fetching £766,972.
Also what they don’t seem to have worked out the market value of the homes, but simply calculated their figure for “vacant homes” by their curiously large average.
If only there were some mechanism to allow the local authorities to tax these properties and use the money to build social housing
This is a crime.
[deleted]
That’s actually not many for such a big city. Around 1% of the population of Greater London. The fact that it’s a record does not mean it’s bad.
The data presented in this article doesn’t make any distinction between vacant and long term vacant.
(For reference, the UK housing stock increases by just under 1% a year)
The root cause of the problem is that there simply isn’t enough housing being built. Unfortunately, obstructive council planning departments and green belts means that even though there is theoretically plenty of land to build on, any proposals to build on that land get declined.
Build More Housing
Why are the properties empty ?
3.6 million dwellings in London, so that’s 0.2% of properties are empty.
0.2% is probably a fairly healthy proportion of empty properties to allow for tenancy voids, restorations etc etc.
it should be taught in schools that the first thing you should do with any headline, particularly one that engenders outrage is to apply some critical thinking.
edit: as u/Colossal_Chaz points out, My percentage was out by a factor of 10 so it should be 2.4%
Many new build flats are only marketed overseas as investments, never put on the home market for occupation.
Should check out SerpentZA’s video on the real estate “market” in China.
They just brought the same practice here.
Hopefully local councils will take advantage of the new ability to jack up council tax on unoccupied homes.
​
It’ll persuade some to sell, and that money could help them out in the interim. Probably one of the better things to come out of a Queens speech in recent years.
Wait over 87k in London alone or is that for a certain region because if thats London.
I only have one question.
What the fuck is going on?
If the article answers that i don’t know because the link is broken for me.
I’m not sure what their point is.
Jesus £130bn worth of homes? That’s like 20 homes in London that are empty
I only popped out to get some bread
Will banks become toxic?
How long are these properties staying vacant for on average? That’s an important question.
If the property is rented and the tenant departs suddenly (dies/skips out to avoid overdue rent/gets evicted), then you generally have to do a thorough cleaning at least before you re-rent.
If it’s owner-occupied and the owner dies, then you can easily be looking at a year to go through the probate process before the place can be sold, then there is actually selling it.
It makes no sense for a landlord to leave a property unoccupied for years – it isn’t earning them any money that way. Also, in some areas, there may be more houses than actual demand. That’s how “Canoe Man” got into financial difficulty in the first place; he brought up properties in places like Easington and couldn’t rent them out because few people want to live in an ex-pit village with no decent local jobs.
Yep remember these stats whenever someone moans about housing refugees and putting our homeless first…government don’t give a shit
That’s gotta be at least 5 houses in London.
Sometimes, sometimes you get what you deserve. No worries, I’m sure they will write it off on taxes and make out like the bandits they are.
Well yeah, nobody can afford it. The fuck you think is gonna happen?
Only going to get worse, the government is far more concerned with providing large companies and billion/millionaires with safe investments than actually housing it’s citizens in any capacity. After graduating I went straight into a job at £50k per year starting, I feel it’s fair to say that’s about as good as it gets and I feel utterly locked out of property market without inherited wealth. I cannot even dream of buying a London property, I could get a shit place in a shit area and pay off a mortgage over 35 years which isn’t attractive at all so I’m leaving the country within the next few years. So few young skilled professionals are going to choose to stay in this country, it’s utterly unaffordable even on what was considered a very good wage.
I’d buy if they just dropped requirements for deposits. Instead I have to slowly save month by month whilst paying rent and fighting against inflation, it’s just so stupid.
And yet our prime minister wants to focus on bring back an old measurement system. Wtf.
That’s absolutely shocking!
Oh, wait. That means 2% of houses are vacant and 98% are occupied.
Calm down everyone. You have no idea how big London actually is.
A colleague of my has a empty property in London just rotting I can’t get my head around it. The reason is it was inherited from a brother in law how died overseas and there was load of probate issues but still just got to the house and set up shop
These investment opportunities are not homes. They might look like a unit a family might live in, but they’re not.
These properties are just another commodity to be bought and sold like steel or coffee beans.
For a long time there has been no money to be made from bank deposit money due to low to non existent interest rates. So the spare cash went into buildings. Any building.
Also an expensive building is a really good way to launder a huge amount of cash acquired by illegal means.
A lot of London is just a big security deposit box for funny money.
Investing in property has always been there. If someone with a portfolio wants to buy a place, keep it empty and pay a management company to look after it, why can’t they do that?
Doesn’t actually profit the rich as well, because it’s slowing down the market, thus doesn’t benefit anyone looking to buy/sell.
87,731 * £400 windfall rebate – £35,092,400
Sounds about right, supposed to be 600k+ vacant at any one time in England alone, 250k+ of which being “long term” (more than 6 months) though that doesn’t factor in properties which are inhabitable due to disrepair etc its still a horrendous figure
This is what happens when homes are an investment and not a home.
Foreign investors are buying up all the property’s in the UK, US, Canada,new Zealand etc outbidding everyone else by 30% massive bubble
To put the housing shortage into perspective, the UK needs to build 300,000 houses per year just to stay level with population growth.
90,000 homes sounds like a lot, but barely touches the sides of the chronic underbuilding problem in the UK.
Our housing shortage CANNOT br fixed by repossessing empty properties.
It’s estimated there are approximately 250,000 vacant homes across the UK, which isn’t even a year’s supply.
We need the Government to be mass building. And we need local parties like the Greens to stop promoting ecofacist NIMBYism.
This exact thing happened after WW2 and people took over all the empty properties, forcing the gov to build council homes. There is a breaking point where people won’t care about law and we’re nearing it.
A while ago I heard someone tell me that the current government is the greatest existential threat to this country since the potential for invasion in the 1940s. I thought that was hyperbole at the time, now as each new news story like this or party gate or sunak or whatever drops I keep thinking back to that statement.
This seems like one of the simplest things to fix, right? Add a huge tax on empty properties. I know council tax is doubled for vacant properties but I mean that isn’t going anywhere near far enough.
Empty properties are bad for everyone, buyers, renters, the local economy. It’s just money laundering of assets from Caymen Islands to Virgin Islands.
**£130 Billion of empty London homes. Yet we have a London housing crisis!**
**And all the criminals in the whole world including Russia use London property to launder money, especially via offshore non transparent companies and unlicensed estate agents and letting agents.**
42 comments
>London has a total of 87,731 vacant homes, making it the top city in the UK for the prevalence of empty houses. With house prices averaging £1.49m in the capital, the cost of vacant homes is approximately £130.8bn.
>
>A recent [study by CIA Landlord Insurance](https://www.cia-landlords.co.uk/news/vacant-homes-and-their-impact-on-the-housing-market-crisis/), which looked at the UK housing crisis and the increasing number of empty homes, analysed the impact that inhabiting vacant homes could have.
>
>The brownfield land availability in cities has also been analysed to reveal which cities would benefit the most from further development. This is in response to the high demand in properties within the UK as well as house prices being exacerbated due to the number of vacant homes in the UK. …
–
Be sure [Govey ain’t gonna do a thing](https://www.google.com/search?q=gove+housing&client=firefox-b-d&biw=1168&bih=771&tbm=nws&ei=GqqUYrbcMMifgQaU-bMQ&oq=Gove+houing&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LW5ld3MQARgAMgQIABANMgYIABANEAoyCAgAEB4QDRAKMggIABAeEA0QCjIGCAAQHhANMggIABAeEA0QCjIICAAQHhANEAUyCAgAEB4QDRAFMggIABAeEA0QBTIICAAQHhANEAU6BAgAEEM6BwgAELEDEEM6CAgAEIAEELEDOggIABCxAxCDAToKCAAQsQMQgwEQCjoFCAAQgAQ6BwgAELEDEAo6BAgAEAo6BQgAEJECOgcIIRAKEKABUIwGWKklYJM5aABwAHgAgAGJB4gBpA6SAQcwLjcuNi0xmAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz-news) to upset anyone who be a party donor or potential future employer of an ex-Tory MP.
I’m looking to buy. Lots of overpriced empty homes that have been sitting on the market since September, with buyers holding on for the megabucks they have been promised
Little reminder:
>openDemocracy: [A quarter of Tory MPs are private landlords](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/quarter-tory-mps-are-private-landlords/)
>
>‘Clear conflict of interests’ as 115 MPs earn thousands of pounds by renting out property
>
>-
>
>In total, 115 (18%) MPs across all parties have declared earning money from rent, with Tories making up the vast majority. This compares to around 3% of the UK’s adult population, meaning MPs are roughly six times more likely to be landlords.
>
>The percentage of landlords rises to 27% among MPs appointed as ministers or whips – including seven of the 25 MPs who attend Cabinet. …
>
>*Martin Williams* 22 July 2021
That’s like 3 houses in central London.
The Landleech and Pensioners’ Party made squatting illegal to ensure that these properties stay empty.
> London has a total of 87,731 vacant homes, making it the top city in the UK for the prevalence of empty houses. With house prices averaging £1.49m in the capital, the cost of vacant homes is approximately £130.8bn.
I’m not sure how valid their maths is, particularly the £1.49 million per house. Right Move says
> Properties in London had an overall average price of £689,544 over the last year. The majority of sales in London during the last year were flats, selling for an average price of £528,914. Terraced properties sold for an average of £771,152, with semi-detached properties fetching £766,972.
Also what they don’t seem to have worked out the market value of the homes, but simply calculated their figure for “vacant homes” by their curiously large average.
If only there were some mechanism to allow the local authorities to tax these properties and use the money to build social housing
This is a crime.
[deleted]
That’s actually not many for such a big city. Around 1% of the population of Greater London. The fact that it’s a record does not mean it’s bad.
The data presented in this article doesn’t make any distinction between vacant and long term vacant.
[Only 1.0% of the UK housing stock is long term vacant.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1074411/Dwelling_Stock_Estimates_31_March_2021.pdf)
(For reference, the UK housing stock increases by just under 1% a year)
The root cause of the problem is that there simply isn’t enough housing being built. Unfortunately, obstructive council planning departments and green belts means that even though there is theoretically plenty of land to build on, any proposals to build on that land get declined.
Build More Housing
Why are the properties empty ?
3.6 million dwellings in London, so that’s 0.2% of properties are empty.
0.2% is probably a fairly healthy proportion of empty properties to allow for tenancy voids, restorations etc etc.
it should be taught in schools that the first thing you should do with any headline, particularly one that engenders outrage is to apply some critical thinking.
edit: as u/Colossal_Chaz points out, My percentage was out by a factor of 10 so it should be 2.4%
Compare that though to [26% in Paris](https://www.thelocal.fr/20170818/paris-26-percent-of-city-centre-homes-empty/)
Many new build flats are only marketed overseas as investments, never put on the home market for occupation.
Should check out SerpentZA’s video on the real estate “market” in China.
They just brought the same practice here.
Hopefully local councils will take advantage of the new ability to jack up council tax on unoccupied homes.
​
It’ll persuade some to sell, and that money could help them out in the interim. Probably one of the better things to come out of a Queens speech in recent years.
Wait over 87k in London alone or is that for a certain region because if thats London.
I only have one question.
What the fuck is going on?
If the article answers that i don’t know because the link is broken for me.
I’m not sure what their point is.
Jesus £130bn worth of homes? That’s like 20 homes in London that are empty
I only popped out to get some bread
Will banks become toxic?
How long are these properties staying vacant for on average? That’s an important question.
If the property is rented and the tenant departs suddenly (dies/skips out to avoid overdue rent/gets evicted), then you generally have to do a thorough cleaning at least before you re-rent.
If it’s owner-occupied and the owner dies, then you can easily be looking at a year to go through the probate process before the place can be sold, then there is actually selling it.
It makes no sense for a landlord to leave a property unoccupied for years – it isn’t earning them any money that way. Also, in some areas, there may be more houses than actual demand. That’s how “Canoe Man” got into financial difficulty in the first place; he brought up properties in places like Easington and couldn’t rent them out because few people want to live in an ex-pit village with no decent local jobs.
Yep remember these stats whenever someone moans about housing refugees and putting our homeless first…government don’t give a shit
That’s gotta be at least 5 houses in London.
Sometimes, sometimes you get what you deserve. No worries, I’m sure they will write it off on taxes and make out like the bandits they are.
Well yeah, nobody can afford it. The fuck you think is gonna happen?
Only going to get worse, the government is far more concerned with providing large companies and billion/millionaires with safe investments than actually housing it’s citizens in any capacity. After graduating I went straight into a job at £50k per year starting, I feel it’s fair to say that’s about as good as it gets and I feel utterly locked out of property market without inherited wealth. I cannot even dream of buying a London property, I could get a shit place in a shit area and pay off a mortgage over 35 years which isn’t attractive at all so I’m leaving the country within the next few years. So few young skilled professionals are going to choose to stay in this country, it’s utterly unaffordable even on what was considered a very good wage.
I’d buy if they just dropped requirements for deposits. Instead I have to slowly save month by month whilst paying rent and fighting against inflation, it’s just so stupid.
And yet our prime minister wants to focus on bring back an old measurement system. Wtf.
That’s absolutely shocking!
Oh, wait. That means 2% of houses are vacant and 98% are occupied.
Calm down everyone. You have no idea how big London actually is.
A colleague of my has a empty property in London just rotting I can’t get my head around it. The reason is it was inherited from a brother in law how died overseas and there was load of probate issues but still just got to the house and set up shop
These investment opportunities are not homes. They might look like a unit a family might live in, but they’re not.
These properties are just another commodity to be bought and sold like steel or coffee beans.
For a long time there has been no money to be made from bank deposit money due to low to non existent interest rates. So the spare cash went into buildings. Any building.
Also an expensive building is a really good way to launder a huge amount of cash acquired by illegal means.
A lot of London is just a big security deposit box for funny money.
Investing in property has always been there. If someone with a portfolio wants to buy a place, keep it empty and pay a management company to look after it, why can’t they do that?
Doesn’t actually profit the rich as well, because it’s slowing down the market, thus doesn’t benefit anyone looking to buy/sell.
87,731 * £400 windfall rebate – £35,092,400
Sounds about right, supposed to be 600k+ vacant at any one time in England alone, 250k+ of which being “long term” (more than 6 months) though that doesn’t factor in properties which are inhabitable due to disrepair etc its still a horrendous figure
This is what happens when homes are an investment and not a home.
Foreign investors are buying up all the property’s in the UK, US, Canada,new Zealand etc outbidding everyone else by 30% massive bubble
To put the housing shortage into perspective, the UK needs to build 300,000 houses per year just to stay level with population growth.
90,000 homes sounds like a lot, but barely touches the sides of the chronic underbuilding problem in the UK.
Our housing shortage CANNOT br fixed by repossessing empty properties.
It’s estimated there are approximately 250,000 vacant homes across the UK, which isn’t even a year’s supply.
We need the Government to be mass building. And we need local parties like the Greens to stop promoting ecofacist NIMBYism.
This exact thing happened after WW2 and people took over all the empty properties, forcing the gov to build council homes. There is a breaking point where people won’t care about law and we’re nearing it.
A while ago I heard someone tell me that the current government is the greatest existential threat to this country since the potential for invasion in the 1940s. I thought that was hyperbole at the time, now as each new news story like this or party gate or sunak or whatever drops I keep thinking back to that statement.
This seems like one of the simplest things to fix, right? Add a huge tax on empty properties. I know council tax is doubled for vacant properties but I mean that isn’t going anywhere near far enough.
Empty properties are bad for everyone, buyers, renters, the local economy. It’s just money laundering of assets from Caymen Islands to Virgin Islands.
**£130 Billion of empty London homes. Yet we have a London housing crisis!**
**And all the criminals in the whole world including Russia use London property to launder money, especially via offshore non transparent companies and unlicensed estate agents and letting agents.**
It’s not a real market. This is not commerce.
Its socio-economically rigged from top to bottom.