The fact that residential property prices have increased twice as quickly as household incomes in England in recent year is a major issue that needs addressing, a Labour MP has warned.
New government data shows that the average annual disposable household income was £35,000 during the financial year ending 2023 in England; the average house price was £298,000, which is the equivalent to a ratio of 8.6 years of household income.
The average house price to disposable household income ratios were 5.8 in Wales, 5.6 in Scotland and 5.0 in Northern Ireland in FYE 2023.
Since this series began, house prices have increased twice as quickly as household incomes in England; house prices in Wales and Scotland have also increased more rapidly than incomes, but the differences are more moderate.
For low-income households, average-priced homes in all four countries have been “unaffordable” (costing more than five years of income) throughout the series.
Only the 10% highest-income households in England could afford an average-priced home with fewer than five years of household income in FYE 2023; in Wales this was the top 30%, the top 40% in Scotland, while in Northern Ireland an average-priced home was affordable with an average household income.
In London, the average home was not affordable for any household income decile; in three other regions, the average home was only affordable to the top decile.
Chris Curtis, a Labour MP on the housing select committee, commented: “These figures demonstrate the staggering scale of our country’s housing crisis and underline the urgency of the task facing this government to end it.
“It is quite frankly shameful that house prices have risen at double the rate of household incomes over the past 20 years. To halt is this trend we need grow our economy so that rising pay-packets mean it’s not just the privileged few who can afford to get on the housing ladder.
“Alongside this we need to be truly radical in reforming the broken planning system and explore innovative solutions to crowd private investment into building more affordable and social housing.”
Housebuilders could bypass planning committees under new plans
I love the fact this MP is treating the data as new information. There has been a Labour Govt in the last 20 years as well as the other bunch of muppets, so they are party to this crisis.
It is simple – build more social housing to solve the crisis. Selling it all off is what started the problem.
Humans claim to be intelligent yet the simple solutions are always overlooked.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
It is not quite as ‘simple’ as that Billy. Selling off social housing in the eighties and nineties worked exceptionally well, getting hundreds of thousands of families onto the housing ladder, where they, for the most part, remain. The single most important factor in house price rises has been immigration, which was +- 30,000 net until the late ’90s, then TB let the world in, and successive governments have followed suit (1.5 million in the last 2 years alone). Building council houses by the million won’t solve the problem, it will just provide roofs over the heads of the workshy. Immigration needs to be cracked right down upon.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
House prices are cheaper in real terms (if you strip out inflation) than in 2003.
And in fact have gone down 15% since Q3 in 2021.
This is something that nobody in the industry likes talking about.
Inflation is like gravity – very hard to beat and almost impossible to avoid.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Yeah.. the real problem is income
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
The house I owned in 1997 when Labour came to power tripled in value (188%) during their 13 years in Government. In the following 14 years, mostly under a Tory Government, it went up by about 60% so a third as much. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I sold it in 2004 by the way.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register