Housing crisis is not just an issue for avo-loving millennials, but one for the UK at large
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House prices crash – first time buyers, rejoice? Hardly. The near four per cent fall over the past year takes house prices back to where they were only a couple of years ago; and with interest rates and therefore the price of mortgages rocketing, the end result is housing remaining out of reach for all too many prospective buyers.
That’s not just a problem for those avocado-on-toast munching, Instagram-scrolling millennials and Gen Zers, but for the UK’s competitiveness at large.
A recent Economist article described the country as ‘Borat Britain’, nodding to the unlikely, fictional Kazakh traveller who perceived the most basic standards of living to be unimaginable luxury. It’s exaggerated to make a point, of course, but it is also true that a country in which the trains don’t run, the health and care system is broken and housing is ruinously expensive should be doing a better job to address those issues.
The first third of those is inarguably the easiest to fix; it involves building more houses (or freeing others up to build more houses) that people want to live in, in places they want to live in.
Despite this relatively simple solution, achieving it has proved more challenging; a succession of housing ministers, who have entered and then departed their posts with more regularity even than Chelsea managers, have made the square root of sod all’s impact on our underbuilding.
There is precious little sign from the Conservative party that prior to an election we will see a mass housebuilding programme, because the people that will one day live in heretofore unbuilt homes don’t yet vote in those constituencies, and those who do, do. Labour, too, are failing to grasp the severity of the problem.
At its heart, housing is a cost of living issue. A radical reduction in the price of the roof above one’s head – through house prices and rents stabilising whilst wages rise alongside – would be transformative for the UK economy. As Borat might say, no high five.