The country’s housing crisis is known to us all, not least because so many of us suffer from its effects. Poor quality accommodation, high rents and a lack of affordable homes to buy have a real impact on people’s lives. But housing also drives the UK’s extreme levels of inequality too.
The Equality Trust’s latest briefing note A House Divided – How Unaffordable Housing Drives UK Inequality shows the scale of housing inequality, and the chronic lack of affordability of housing for many people. Our analysis finds that:
- 86% of renters (over 6 million households) have less than the £8,838.65 needed for even a 5% deposit for a mortgage on an average first home in the UK.
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95% have less than the deposit (£35,354.60) needed for a mortgage on an average first home in the UK.
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78% have less than a quarter of the deposit needed (5% of total house value, or £3,629) for an average house in Burnley (the local authority area with the lowest average house price).
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Twenty four of the wealthiest 100 people in Britain last year grew their wealth, in part, through owning property. They have a combined worth of over £78 bn. Last year these 24 people saw their wealth rise by almost £7 bn. That’s the equivalent of 33,144 average priced houses
Housing is a key component of the story of inequality in this country, where we are fast becoming a nation with a dwindling number of the ‘housing haves’, and millions more becoming the ‘renting rest’. Our briefing note calls on political parties to tackle this inequality and lack of affordability through a fairer Council Tax, and a commitment to a genuine, ambitious housebuilding programme that reduces both impossibly high housing costs and extreme inequality.