A new report commissioned by the Labour Party and carried out by chief executive of Taylor Wimpey casts a very different light on Britain’s property market.
Owner occupied turned full circle
Since the new century hit, we’ve seen a decline in rates of owner-occupiers across Britain. Putting this into figures, the rates have dropped from 70.9% in 2000 to 63.6% in 2014/15. The UK was, historically, a place of homeownership whilst other countries like the US were bigger on renting. Recently, however, it seems like the property market is coming full circle with the US buying and the UK renting.
Some of the areas that have strruggled the most through this process are London and the South East. The South offers a lot of employment opportunities and therefore needs a lot of accommodation, which led to a rise in prices due to the lack of appropriate housing. As a consequence more and more investors used to focus on London, before even those were priced out of the market.
Long-term planning necessary
In the long run, the Government, councils and builders all need to work together to find a solution to this problem. Whilst research reveals that Britain needs to at least build an additional 150,000 homes every year until 2020 to even get close to solving this housing crisis, currently the numbers are far from it.
With Brexit only happening 5 months ago and the uncertainty that came with is still playing on a lot of investors minds, foreign investors appear to lay low for a while.
A variety of schemes and funds already exist to help solve the issue, other problem like sufficient staff in the construction industry and, on a very basic level, a good amount of bricks, still make the housing crisis one of the UK’s biggest topics.
