Forgive this piece being about housing generally rather than agency specifically but I've received another press release - and it's lit the blue touch paper.
It is about how new-build homes on sale in London and officially designated as affordable' should not be dismissed as being just forwell, working class buyers.
Of course no one used those words in the press release but that is what was meant.
The thrust of the release was that London homes are so expensive, and so often snaffled up by the people most of us would regard as wealthy', that the word affordable' in swathes of southern England actually means suitable for white-collar types' as well as the horny-handed sons and daughters of toil.
The press release came from a housing association - which, one might have thought, would positively want the badly-off to rent or buy its homes.
Not necessarily, not any more.
But I wonder how we ever expect workers - you know, the people who fight fires, answer telephones and clean streets - to join our property-owning democracy if the supposedly affordable' schemes are actually taken over by middle-class buyers
Until the downturn most affordable shared-ownership schemes tried to attract key workers, sometimes even specifying the jobs which buyers should hold - nurses, police offices, firefighters and teachers, usually. That kind of prioritisation has fallen out of favour, not least because many public sector workers are now as well paid as private sector ones.
Then there came strict geographic rules as to where the individuals should be living prior to purchase - local ones, in other words. This was undeniably difficult to enforce, open to gerrymandering as well as accusations of bias and racism.
But now affordable homes on sale are mostly wide open to relatively high earners.
Recent research from the London Assembly suggested that in many London boroughs household incomes of £65,000 or £51,000 were required now to stand a chance of, respectively, buying or renting so-called affordable new-build homes.
As a result, I suspect the middle-class buyers snaffle up most of the properties designated as affordablebegging the question: so where do the less well-paid go
They head for the private rental sector, in the main, but why is that what 'they' should expect when 'we' are encouraged to become owner occupiers
One of the few pieces of research I have ever seen on this subject was undertaken back in 2009 - yes, six years ago! - by Genesis Homes, a housing association.
It questioned huge numbers of applicants (successful or not) for its own London shared-ownership homes at the time, and it found this startling breakdown:
Employment sector: Number of applicants:
Management 549
Financial services 222
Health care (private and public) 189
Education (private and public) 184
Retail 148
Transport 137
Government 113
IT 102
Social care 82
Business 69
Catering 58
Construction 55
Engineering 54
Sales 50
Recruitment 50
Emergency Services 46
Legal 32
Others 405
In other words, most of those applying for such properties were professionals, not those necessarily the lowest paid.
I don't blame the MPs, the housing associations or the individuals who all enjoy an easier life by allowing much affordable' housing to go to people on incomes of £50,000 or £70,000. But what happens to people on £25,000 Or those on zero hour contracts
The long term answer, of course, is to build more homes, enough for everyone and enough to make affordable mean what it says.
But building more homes is easier said than done. Even so, it may still be easier than one other thing ... being able to afford an affordable new-build.
*Editor of Estate Agent Today and Letting Agent Today, Graham can be found tweeting about all things property @PropertyJourn.
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