Young woman and man wait on a bench with a sleeping bag at night, photo by Tony Fischer (Creative Commons)

Young woman and man wait on a bench with a sleeping bag at night, photo by Tony Fischer (Creative Commons)   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Suzanne Beishon, Shared ownership householder

The news broke last week that people were queuing overnight to buy studio flats in far-west London for £200,000.

Very few Londoners will have blinked an eye. Because this grim scenario is becoming the norm.

London’s house prices are rocketing. Anyone trying to do the impossible – get affordable housing in the capital – is thrown into a bear pit to fight it out for the few remaining scraps.

The studios, converted from old American Airlines offices, start at £199,000. That’s for a 28-square-metre ‘studio suite’. This rises to £355,000 for a one-bedroom apartment.

Those supposedly lucky enough to make it through the doors and have a chance at one of the 228 flats will have to put down a £2,000 deposit. Then they must pay 20% of the value within ten months. All for homes not set to be completed until 2017.

The grotesque London property market never misses the chance to make a quick buck. This meant the majority queuing were in fact bloated property investors. A few desperate, young first-time buyers were peppered around them.

Meanwhile, in south-east London’s Peckham, a pre-fabricated 1950s council-owned bungalow – on 0.6 acres of land – fell prey to a bidding war. It sold for a staggering £950,000.

Cram

Meanwhile young – and not-so-young – renters cram into sheds, box rooms and cupboards in overcrowded, dilapidated flats for sky-high rents.

The Socialist Party fights for rent controls and a mass programme of council house building. Stop the sell-off of social housing stock. Bring unoccupied homes into public ownership.

Take the wealth off the 1% super-rich bosses and landlords – and end the living nightmare of our housing crisis.