Housing is now the biggest domestic public policy failure since the Second World War. A broken market that doesn’t meet the needs of middle income households, rising prices that see little response in supply of new homes and, if we’re honest, politicians who seem incapable of making a difference.
The starkest mismatch between supply and demand is in home-ownership. Most people want to own their own home, but the number able to do so is in freefall – with young people hit hardest of all.
New figures that I release today show that the number of home-owning households headed by under 35s has fallen by over a quarter of a million since 2010.
This affects young people across all social classes. Even home-ownership amongst young people in good professional jobs has slumped, down 150,000 in the last five years.
But the biggest percentage fall has been young working class households – down a fifth in five years and now only one in five under 35s in manual jobs own their own home.
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