Home truths | 19 April 2018

Much rot is spoken about how the young have it so bad. In fact, this generation is healthier, richer and better-educated than any before — as well as being better-behaved and more conscientious than their parents were. But the one area where they do struggle is in buying a house. The asset boom of recent years has disfigured the economy, sending property prices soaring and conferring vast wealth on pensioners while giving the young a mountain to climb. Home ownership rates stand at a 30-year low. And the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds in private rented accommodation has almost doubled in the last ten years.

This marks not just a dramatic socioeconomic shift in a country that was once strongly associated with owning your own home. (Britain now has the fifth-lowest ownership rate in Europe.) It also represents the rapid growth of a significant new political constituency: people who were brought up in owner-occupied homes but who must now bring up their own children in rented ones.

For the Conservatives, whose success over the past century has owed a lot to their claim to be the party of home-ownership and aspiration, this poses an existential threat. Why would anyone want to support the party of property if they cannot see a way to acquire a property of their own?

Rising house prices were once an electoral asset. They made people feel richer and more likely to reward the government presiding over the market that brought them their capital gain. But now the situation has flipped and high house prices are a huge negative for young voters. If you are stuck in a rented flat, frustrated at your in-ability to afford your own home, the housing policies advanced by Jeremy Corbyn at last year’s general election are far more appealing: a cap on rent rises, three-year minimum tenancies and a licensing scheme that aims to drive rogue landlords out of business.