With the housing sector in turmoil it is time to reconsider home ownership and new development
Well-thought article written by Wayne Hemingway in The Guardian. One thing is clear after reading him: Real Estate needs re-estructure. Realtors will have to change the way they view the market, thus the way they sell its properties.
It's no business anymore. It's something more social. It's a service.
"If you were to look at the housing need numbers compared to what is actually being built it is easy to argue that the housing industry is still on its backside.
There hasn't been the predicted reversal in the shedding of the housebuilding workforce that has taken place at an unprecedented rate and it seems an ideal time to take stock.
Where am I with my crusade to prove that housing can be well designed, part of a long-term positive legacy, sustainable and profitable?
In the last decade there has been much more talk about placemaking and sustainability in the housing industry. The easiest target has always been the housebuilder. My view is that housebuilders rarely have the experience to deliver what, in these "post-housing greed "times, many of us want from our homes. In which other industry do so few of the senior employees use the products they sell? It is rare to find a decision-making employee of a mass housebuilder living in one of its products.
The next phase of the history of housing will not be based on people buying property as an investment; they are going to be looking to buy homes to live in and communities to put down roots in. I have met some good planners who understand liveability and placemaking but there aren't enough of them.
In recent weeks, people have been asking how rioters can smash up their own communities and the looters grab from their neighbours. The problem is that these people feel alienated from their communities and don't feel that they have a doorstep to call their own. While community is about people, it helps if there are physical facilities at its core and it's a worry how these are funded with the present "cut at all costs" attitude coming out of the Treasury."