In December 2012, Theresa May claimed that more than a third
of all new housing demand in Britain was caused by immigration. “And there is
evidence that without the demand caused by mass immigration, house prices could
be 10% lower over a 20-year period.” This encourages the idea that the housing
crisis is caused by mass migration and that without migration, Britain would
have no need for more housing. There is a high perception among white Britons
that migrants receive positive discrimination when it comes to social housing.
A 2014 LSE discussion paper points out: “The level of discrimination perceived
by white Britons in social housing is higher than that perceived by any other
group in social housing. And the only other ethnic groups reporting higher
levels of perceived discrimination with any part of the state is the black
community with the police, criminal justice and immigration authorities, a
relationship that we know to be very troubled.” One Daily Mail headline from
2012, read: “Revealed: How HALF of all social housing in England goes to people
born abroad”. The actual figure at the time was 8.6%: it now stands at 9%.
Around 91% of all new social tenancies are taken up by UK-born citizens.
But migrants aren’t jumping queues for social housing, and
in some places immigration actually lowers housing demand. Migrants are more
likely to rent in the private sector, as opposed to buying homes or living in
social housing.
The London School of Economics report that May cited as the
source for her claim also says: “In the early years even better off migrants
tend to form fewer households as compared to the indigenous population; to live
disproportionately in private renting; and to live at higher densities.
However, the longer they stay, the more their housing consumption resembles
that of similar indigenous households.”
This, in part, debunks the idea that immigration is the
biggest strain on housing – new arrivals tend to live in denser households and
take up less space. As the LSE report also points out, two thirds of housing
demand is created not by net migration figures being higher than in previous
years, but by a lack of social housing stock, an increase in life expectancy,
and more households delaying marriage or forgoing cohabitation resulting in an
increased number of smaller households.
According to the Oxford Migration Observatory, 74% of recent
migrants (those who have been in the UK for five years or less) were in the
private rented sector in the first quarter of 2015: they are twice as likely to
be renters compared with the total migrant population; 39% of the total
foreign-born population were in the private rented sector, and just 14% of the
UK-born population.
Filipa Sá, a labour economist and academic, found that
immigration actually lowers, rather than raises, house prices in some areas. In
a 2014 Economic Journal article, Immigration and house prices in the UK, Sá
wrote that an increase of immigrants equal to 1% of the initial local
population leads to a 1.7% reduction in house prices, based on immigration data
from the Labour Force Survey. Crucially, new immigration to an area may lower
the average local income, and decrease both housing demand and supply:
immigration often leads to an outflow of natives (white flight), leading to a
lower demand for housing, Sá wrote.
Recent migrants will find it very hard to get into social
housing (except for asylum seekers); have a look at your local authority set of
rules for getting social housing. It is harder to get social housing if you
have no connection with the area. You also have to be legally allowed to live
in the country, so, there is no way to arrive and simply be given a tenancy. There
are very, very few homes available. The only people that get them are desperate
or in the right place at the right time (typically pensioner who has been on
the housing list for a very long time - sheltered housing does have a
turnover). Where immigrants must impact housing supply is in the supply within
the private sector. A lot of them do claim in-work benefits which includes
housing benefit. The presence of £25billion worth of housing benefit in the UK
will inflate house rents for all. It's not generous but there appears to be a
ready supply of immigrants in low wage jobs who are prepared to live in houses
of multiple occupation that are awful dives when they first get here.
Indigenous Brits are rarely prepared to put up with that.
There has been one area where immigration has been crucial
in attempting to solve the housing crisis: building homes. The Chartered
Institute of Building points out that any caps on immigration will harm house-building
rates, as not enough British-born nationals are either trained or interested in
construction careers, and migrants have been filling the gap.
House building has never kept pace with the population. It
doesn't suit the developers to have too many properties on the market. Best to
land grab, keep hold of said land and only build on it when they can make the
maximum profits. Housing is not considered a roof over people's heads by the
investment sector, but something that can be speculated upon. Many people think
that the problem is buy-to-let but it is buy-to-leave-empty that is an
increasing problem.
1 comment:
Right. The problem is lack of supply and allowing demand to increase just enough to keep prices rising. The solution to the problem is social ownership and democratic control over the collective product of labour, including housing.
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