Lets Rethink Housing: Surely we can do something now? Without new laws?

Posted byHysnap - Gamer and Mental Health suffererPosted inPoliticsTags:, , , ,

So let’s imagine this has gone well.

We’ve got a solid idea.
We’ve persuaded a government to back it.
The legislation is being drafted.
The machinery is grinding into life.

Which means — realistically — we’re waiting.

Not months.
Years.

And while all that process is happening, another question naturally pops up:

Is there anything we could start doing now, using the laws and powers we already have?

Not instead of the bigger plan.
Not as a workaround.
But as a while we’re waiting move.

Something that gets things moving — even slowly — rather than sitting on our hands.

Because once we strip away the slogans, a lot of what we’ve been talking about doesn’t actually sound radical at all.

It sounds administrative.

And surely we’re not the first people to have looked at the housing system and thought:

“Hang on… couldn’t we start nudging this in the right direction already?”

So why hasn’t this happened already?

Because it feels risky.

Not economically — politically.

Going first always does.
In fact, we’re right back in the Mexican standoff.

Move, and you take the risk.
Wait, and someone else might blink first.

Which is why housing policy has drifted into a familiar loop:

  • reviews
  • consultations
  • announcements
  • delays

All sensible in isolation.
All paralysing together.

But is there actually enough “stuff” there to work with?

This is where the conversation usually changes tone.

Because the short answer is this:

There’s enough “dead” housing capacity in the UK to make a real dent in the crisis before we pour a single new foundation.

It’s locked up by incentives, not physics.

So let’s put some numbers on that — carefully.

Empty homes vs real demand

Using the standard official definition (homes empty for six months or more):

  • Around 670,000 empty homes in England
  • Of those, roughly 250,000–300,000 are long-term vacant

That’s not normal churn.
That’s housing stock doing nothing.

Put another way:
that’s about 3–4% of the entire housing stock.

Now compare that to demand — the comparison we rarely make side by side:

  • Local authority waiting lists: ~1.2 million households
  • Overcrowded households: ~800,000
  • “Hidden” households — adults staying put because they have nowhere to go: hundreds of thousands more

No — empty homes alone don’t solve this.

But re-activating even half of long-term empty homes:

  • covers an entire year’s net housing requirement
  • does it now, not in ten years

That’s not theory.
That’s stock already built.

Homes with permission that never get built

This one’s quieter — and bigger.

Best estimates converge around this:

  • 1.1–1.4 million homes have planning permission
  • 600,000–700,000 aren’t yet built
  • Of those, 300,000–400,000 are stalled or slow-build

That’s roughly two years’ worth of housing delivery, already approved.

And the important bit:

This isn’t because planners said no.

It’s because:

  • builds are phased to protect prices
  • land value rises faster than build margins
  • waiting has “option value”
  • sales rates are deliberately capped

We call this land banking, but that undersells it.

It’s not hoarding land.
It’s hoarding permission.

Once permission is granted, scarcity becomes part of the business model.

Put together, the scale looks like this

CategoryApprox volume
Long-term empty homes250k–300k
Permissioned but unbuilt homes600k–700k
Total latent supply~900k–1 million homes

That’s not hypothetical supply.

That’s homes that already exist — or already have permission — but aren’t being used.

So why doesn’t the market just fix this?

Because, inside the current system, waiting often makes sense.

If supply stays tight:

  • prices hold up
  • land appreciates
  • risk stays low

From inside the system, waiting looks like good sense.
Sometimes it’s the only sensible choice.

Which brings us back to where we’ve been all along:

This isn’t about bad actors.
It’s about incentives lining up the wrong way.

Have other countries done things like this?

Yes — quietly, and without drama.

Not identical schemes, but familiar ideas:

  • Germany taxes long-term vacant property more aggressively
  • France applies vacancy taxes in high-demand cities
  • Singapore uses time-limited permissions and development obligations
  • Japan combines low land speculation with fast build-out

Different cultures.
Different markets.

Same basic lesson:

when waiting stops being rewarded, things start moving.

And what about cost?

Here’s the key point:

We already spend tens of billions a year dealing with the consequences of shortage:

  • housing benefit
  • temporary accommodation
  • homelessness services
  • lost productivity

Re-activating existing stock and permissioned land:

  • costs less than new infrastructure
  • delivers faster returns
  • reduces pressure elsewhere

This isn’t “new money vs nothing”.

It’s spend differently now, save later.

So what could we actually do now?

Nothing dramatic.

But enough to shift momentum:

  • targeted empty-homes programmes in high-demand areas
  • time-limited development conditions on existing permissions
  • pilot housing bond issuance at modest scale
  • public build-to-rent on stalled sites

Not instead of the bigger scheme.

But while we’re waiting for it.

Where does that leave us?

Not with certainty.

But with something better than hand-wringing.

A shared understanding that:

  • the capacity is already there
  • the blockage is structural
  • the risk of doing nothing is real
  • and moving carefully is still moving

This isn’t about forcing outcomes.

It’s about changing the payoff matrix so building becomes normal again.

That’s not radical.

It’s just deciding not to stay frozen in the standoff.

Addendum: Further reading & evidence

This section isn’t required to follow the argument in the main posts.
It’s here for anyone who wants to check the numbers, see the precedents, or dig into the mechanics a bit more.

Nothing here is obscure or secret — it’s mostly official data and reviews that already exist.

1. Empty homes & unused housing stock (UK)

Official statistics

Analysis & policy discussion

2. Homes with planning permission but not built

Key review

Supporting material

3. Housing demand vs delivery

Household formation & need

Historic reviews

4. Land value vs construction value

Land value data

Context & analysis

5. International approaches to vacancy & build-out

France

Germany

Singapore

Japan

6. Why this isn’t sub-prime all over again

Sub-prime collapse analysis

UK housing finance

7. Housing benefit, cost & system drag

Spending data

Policy shifts

8. Governance, arms-length bodies & “boring politics”

UK governance parallels

Related post

  • What business actually wants from government (on this site)

A final note on the evidence

None of this proves there’s a single perfect answer.

What it does show is that:

  • the capacity exists
  • the costs are already being paid
  • the incentives are well understood
  • and other countries already intervene more than we do — just more quietly

Which brings us back to the central point of the series:

This isn’t about inventing something radical.
It’s about choosing to use the tools we already have — deliberately, slowly, and honestly.

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Published by Hysnap - Gamer and Mental Health sufferer

I created this blog as a place to discuss Mental health issues. I chose to include Music ,PC Gaming videos and more recently tabletop gaming as all of these have helped with the management of my Mental Health and I thought people who find the Blog for these may also find the Mental Health resources useful. I am aware that a lot of people with Mental Health concerns are not aware that this is what they have or how to go about getting help, I know I was one of these people for at least 10 years. Therefore if one person is helped by the content on my Blog, if one person discovers the blog and gets a better understanding of Mental Health through the videos I post, then all the work will have been worthwhile. If not.. well I am enjoying making the videos and writing the blog, and doing things I enjoy helps my mental health so call it a self serving therapy.

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