The Institute for Public Policy Research has said that Britain’s housing crisis will force millions more people to rent or live at home.
The IPPR said that by 2020, the number of 18-to-30-year-old homeowners would have fallen by 1.1m to 1.3m, while an extra 1.5m people of the same age bracket will live in privately rented properties.
The IPPR added that the number of people in their 30s living with their parents will rise by 500,000. Dalia Ben-Galim, associate director at IPPR, said: “Our analysis shows that the lack of houses is dragging young people down. A huge majority of today’s younger generation want to own their home, just as most of their parents have done. But the prospect is slipping ever further over the horizon”.
Nick Pearce, a director at IPPR, adds that building more homes is vital for the UK economy, but it also makes a difference to the kind of society which is being built. He remarks that when young people buy their own homes, they feel like citizens with a stake in society.
Source: The Observer
We say: Every cloud has its silver lining. Would it make us look like hardened cynics if we were to point out that at least this means there will be a healthy buy-to-let market for all those people who have utterly lost faith in the pension industry? Probably would: we’d better not say it then.