Budgets & fiscal events· Housing Stamping it out? Housing in the Budget 17 November 2017 by Lindsay Judge It’s that time of year when we all read the runes from the Treasury in an effort to anticipate what will be announced in the Budget next week. We know the government is acutely aware that nothing ranks more highly with the disaffected young voter than the question of housing. Small surprise, then, that many … Continued READ MORE
Budgets & fiscal events· Housing Strictly Come Building: How housing can make a star turn in the upcoming Budget 9 November 2017 by Torsten Bell Lowering expectations ahead of a Budget always helps a Chancellor. And when it comes to expectations of Cabinet members, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have definitely been in the lowering business. But others have made the Chancellor’s task harder rather than easier. Robert Chote, the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, is set to … Continued READ MORE
Housing Helping or hindering? The latest on Help to Buy 3 November 2017 by Lindsay Judge When Sajid Javid announced last month that the government would allocate a new tranche of money to the Help to Buy (HTB) programme he claimed that this would enable “people to make their dream of owning a home a reality”. But is this expensive policy really doing ‘people’ any favours? When HTB was introduced in … Continued READ MORE
Housing An additional £2bn for affordable housing – a big deal or just small fry? 5 October 2017 by Lindsay Judge It’s the morning after Theresa May committed an additional £2 billion to affordable housing, so is this a big deal or just small fry? The announcement is clearly significant in a number of key ways. First, this money represents a sizeable bump to the £7 billion the government had already pledged over the parliament for … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre Social housing for the younger generations? 4 October 2017 by Lindsay Judge Social housing has received much well-deserved attention over the conference season and even looks set to be the star of the show in Theresa May’s speech. But while the rise and fall of the sector is a familiar story, the intergenerational consequences of its course are rarely remarked upon. With our new research showing that … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Intergenerational Centre Politicians need to be talking about solutions to the housing crisis 20 September 2017 by Torsten Bell Everyone’s worried about the young. Not least because, if June’s election is anything to go by, it turns out that they do in fact vote and aren’t exactly enamoured with what it turns out 21st Century Britain has to offer them. Whatever the reason for this summer’s youth-angsting, it’s a very sensible thing to do. … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Homes sweet homes – the rise of multiple property ownership in Britain 19 August 2017 by Laura Gardiner When is a house not a home? Increasingly often, it turns out. Be it a holiday cottage for weekend getaways, a pied-à-terre in the city, a flat rented out for a bit of extra income, or an empty shell of bricks and mortar working harder for your savings than an ISA possibly could – multiple … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Housing Five things you need to know about housing and wealth 21 June 2017 by Torsten Bell Visitors to the UK often complain that we talk about nothing but houses and house prices over dinner. They are wrong. The real problem, at least when it comes to public policy, is that we don’t talk nearly enough about housing and other forms of wealth. Our national debates tend to focus on the earnings, … Continued READ MORE
Housing Looking for house and home 25 May 2017 by Lindsay Judge You can normally get a good feel for changing political priorities by tracking how often the parties refer to particular issues over time. Search for ‘house’ and ‘home’ in the manifestos of the two main parties and, as Figure 1 shows, in 2001 neither term got much of a look-in. Today, even when we strip … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Political parties and elections Home ownership for young families has halved in West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Outer London since the 1990s 19 May 2017 by Lindsay Judge The phrase ‘housing crisis’ is rarely off politicians’ lips these days as they increasingly recognise that the cost of a home – to buy and to rent – plays a key role in determining living standards. And quite right too as new Resolution Foundation analysis shows that the crisis is both acute and widely felt. … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Tax· Intergenerational Centre· Political parties and elections Death taxes, the Conservative manifesto, and the changing politics of intergenerational fairness 18 May 2017 by Torsten Bell Today we got sight of the Conservative Party’s Theresa May’s manifesto. Just two short years since the last Tory manifesto was presented to the British public, this 2017 offering is a very different beast. The personality shift is all too obvious as Mayism well and truly buries the Cameron/Osborne era of combining rhetorical focus on … Continued READ MORE
Housing Six key charts ahead of the housing White Paper 6 February 2017 by Lindsay Judge It’s been trailed all over the weekend, so it feels like we already know a lot of what is going to be in the much-awaited housing White Paper when it is finally published tomorrow. But will it really mark a sea-change in housing policy? Or be simply another document we can add to the pile … Continued READ MORE
Housing The delicate balance of ‘build to rent’ 6 February 2017 by Lindsay Judge How times change. Twenty five year ago less than one in ten families rented their home from a private landlord; today that figure stands at close to one in five. Renting is no longer the tenure of just the footloose and fancy-free who prize the flexibility that it offers. The private rented sector (PRS) is … Continued READ MORE
Housing Resolving to fill the housing ‘aspiration gap’ 3 January 2017 by Matthew Whittaker New Year look-aheads are always a risky endeavour, and the level of uncertainty facing the UK economy at the start of 2017 means that the danger of looking foolish is even more elevated this time around. But we can be sure of one thing at least: our obsession with housing will show no sign of … Continued READ MORE
Housing Only half of families own their own home – how do the other half live? 27 December 2016 by Lindsay Judge and Adam Corlett While the received wisdom is that home ownership has fallen to 64 per cent over the last decade, is that a fair reflection of the real world? Do around two in three of us really own our home? Conventional rates of home ownership may offer a misleading picture as they only tell us the proportion … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Mind the representation gap 22 December 2016 by Daniel Tomlinson We’ve heard a lot about fairness between the generations recently. Housing is normally the issue at hand. After all, home ownership is becoming an ever more distant dream for a growing number of millennials. As a result, twenty somethings are now spending £44,000 more on rent during their 20s than the baby boomers did. And … Continued READ MORE
Housing Who is feeling the fullest force of the housing crisis? 30 November 2016 by Lindsay Judge We’ve written recently about how rising housing costs are acting as a headwind, holding back improvements in living standards for many households in the UK today. But who is feeling the fullest force of the housing crisis? Which types of households are most likely to be living in unaffordable housing today and how has this … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Incomes· Housing· Welfare The 14p stealth tax rise that is hammering ‘just managing families’ 30 September 2016 by Torsten Bell Judging new governments is hard. Without decisions taken, let alone results delivered, we are left to judge the early months of an administration by the purpose that motivates it. On this measure how does the first three months of Theresa May’s government measure up? First and foremost of course this government is about delivering Brexit. … Continued READ MORE
Housing A tale of two cities 5 August 2016 by Lindsay Judge Housing affordability is often depicted as primarily a London problem but is this really the case? New analysis from the Resolution Foundation suggests that while the capital may be at the epicentre, the housing storm now rages far and wide. London itself is a tale of two cities. Home ownership rates in Inner London have … Continued READ MORE
Cities and regions· Housing Home ownership struggle reaches Coronation Street 2 August 2016 by Stephen Clarke Handwringing about the housing crisis has become a national pastime. Not surprising perhaps, with home ownership becoming an increasingly unrealistic dream for many younger families. This was once a London-centric issue, but there is growing evidence to suggest the crisis is spreading across the rest of the country – with Manchester and other big northern … Continued READ MORE
Housing Could a Brexit-induced house price fall benefit those who are struggling with housing costs? 19 July 2016 by Lindsay Judge In a world full of gloomy post-referendum prognostics is there anything for low to middle income households to be cheerful about? In recent research we have shown that rising housing costs have dragged down living standards over the last two decades. Could a Brexit-induced drop in house prices be the silver lining for these hard-pressed … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Housing Prioritising the housing headwind in the debate on living standards 28 June 2016 by Lindsay Judge Much has been made in recent days of the role that living standards may have played in the Brexit vote. But while we often hear about pay and jobs, the crucial question of housing has been largely absent from the discussion. A new Resolution Foundation report published today shows why housing costs need to be … Continued READ MORE
Housing High housing costs are a particular strain on Britain’s growing army of private renters 16 May 2016 by Lindsay Judge Much of the housing debate focuses on the struggle to get on the housing ladder. It’s easy to see why. Imagine you are a middle income family wanting to buy an average priced home. Twenty years ago, if you budgeted carefully and put aside five per cent of your income each year for a deposit … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Housing· Political parties and elections One Nation or two? 21 March 2016 by Torsten Bell Iain Duncan Smith says the government’s claim to be a One Nation government is at risk and that it is “in danger of drifting in a direction that divides society rather than unites it”. Government spokespeople, including the Climate Change Secretary, Amber Rudd, have been clear they think he is wrong – indeed the Prime … Continued READ MORE
Housing Dealing with the housing aspiration gap 19 December 2015 by Matthew Whittaker Britain’s reputation as a nation of home-owners is under threat. While it’s true that just under two-thirds (65 per cent) of us own our own place, the home-ownership rate has fallen from 73 per cent since 2007. This downward trend has occurred despite the proportion owning their home outright continuing to rise gently in recent … Continued READ MORE
