Reply To: Is it time Right to Buy was stopped

[don]

Certainly up to WW1 and probably until after WW2, it was the norm to rent your house. Most people didn’t own a house at all. Thatcher, with her “know the price of everything and the value of nothing”, and “let the market decide” ethos decided to enable people renting Council housing stock to buy, at a ludicrously cheap price.

Right to Buy is possibly a good thing as long as it’s strictly controlled in who can buy and why. For example – the blocks of flats overlooking Lords Cricket ground in London were originally owned by the council. Under Right to Buy they were sold to the tenants, many of whom (I imagine) sold them on at a vast profit.

Right to buy could be used to adjust a Council’s stock of housing, increasing or decreasing a certain type of property depending on fluctuating demographics.

However, I do think that it’s wrong to have RTB without a corresponding building programme as well.

I also think (not connected really with RTB but a particular hate of mine) that these programmes on TV about buying to let are wrong. People with money are preventing people with much less money from getting on the ladder by snapping up properties at auction to renovate and sell on or let.