The UK Housing Crisis.
East of England housing crisis.
The East of England is in the midst of one of the worst housing crisis' it has ever seen. In a report on the local news it warns that house prices are set to rise by up to 52% in the next decade. If this is the case then you can only expect that demand is going to continue to outstrip supply.
For many years now the UK has been in a housing crisis and young people are finding it more and more difficult to get a foot on the housing ladder due to the inflated prices of recent years.
Since the recent financial crashes house prices have taken a hit but are slowly making a return to more normal levels.This is no comfort to the young families who very often have got to leave where they were brought up and have roots and family in order to get a property of their own. This is typical of this current housing crisis.
Watch Anglia News Article.
Supply and demand.
It's all about supply and demand. When demand for a product is high and the product is in short supply the suppliers are able to command premium prices even if the product is not as good as it could be. This is so typical of housing in the UK. Government after government have always predicted that there will be a shortage of housing and particularly community housing where people can rent.
If you look at other countries such as France, they tend to be a nation who rent and not buy houses. In Britain we have always preferred to buy instead.
Increased population.
Alarming figures are being published which are telling us that in the next decade certain areas of East of England are going to see increases in population and demand for housing as high as 33%. East Cambridgeshire and Fenland is no exception to this. If better quality sustainable housing isn't built in the next five to ten years then there will be an even bigger crisis than there already is.
Of course there are house building programmes going ahead but it just simply isn't enough. We need even more than is currently being built to serve the demands on supply. Affordability has got to be the key in order for new families to live a decent life and not have to continuously struggle to pay for their home. For people who buy their own home here in the UK more than one third of what they earn goes into the property, maybe even more. When you factor in utility bills and everything else then you are looking at substantially more. Going out to work in the 21st century just to keep a roof over your head is a necessity but there has to be more to life surely.
House price rises.
The fact that it is predicted that house prices in the next decade are set to rise by 52% tells me that the situation is indeed not going to get any better. Is another housing bubble going to develop and will there then be future crashes in the housing market. Only time will tell, but it does seem that this phenomenon is cyclical. We all know that the recent financial crashes were caused by the banking sector not heeding the signs and lending to many who could not afford to buy these high priced, over priced houses. Banking sector pay and fat cat bank bosses creaming all the profits also did not help the situation yet they still continue to be paid to fail, but that is another story for another day.
What I am concerned with is the continued growth of population and prices here. We can't sustain higher property prices and expect things to get better because it seems demand will always outstrip supply until our government finally makes housing, no, affordable housing it's main priority.
It is time for brown field sites to be bought up and used for housing development and not for industry.
What is your view?
I am interested to learn what the general view is on this important subject so why not leave your comments and get your views into the public domain. This is a great platform for doing just that. Please accept my thanks for reading thus far and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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