The problem with the council house sell off was not replacing them on a 1:1 ratio -- for every house sold, a new one was built.
It also reduces the number of people renting, which lowers rental prices, which is also good.
It may increase the price of new houses for cash buyers. I have little sympathy for people that wealthy.
If you want to get more houses built, institute a land value tax. Taylor Wimpy owns 6,000 heactares of land. With just 25 houses per hectare, that's 150,000 unbuilt houses across the country. Assuming that a land value tax would replace council tax that would be about £1500 a year tax, or £225m a year in tax, maybe that would encourage them to speed up construction rather than building them at a rate that maximises profits.
At least you agree that there is a problem with supply.
> It also reduces the number of people renting, which lowers rental prices, which is also good.
Converting renters into buyers without building more housing reduces both the demand for and the supply of rental housing. This will not reduce rental prices.
> It may increase the price of new houses for cash buyers. I have little sympathy for people that wealthy.
Your sympathy is not required, but you should at least see how landlords paying higher prices for housing leads to higher rents for tenants.
Or libertarians, because government subsidies distort the market and all that.
> Taylor Wimpy owns 6,000 heactares of land.
UK has 25 million hectares of land, ~2m in the south east. The problem isn't Taylor Wimpy owning all of the unbuilt ones. The London greenbelt is 500k hectares. That's a more plausible bottleneck. Considering 'London greenbelt' is just one dimension of regulation on housing construction and Taylor Wimpy presumably owns land outside south east.
