For years the Brits have led the rent loving Europeans when it came to home ownership. The phrase an Englishmans home is his castle rang true.
Last year however the home ownership rate in the UK was 64.8% which meant the French with 65.1% of the market in owner occupier hands overtook the Brits for the first time since the Eurostat records began back in 1995.
It seems that these days we Brits are more European than the quintessential Europeans the French.
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There is this rather wonderful idea that mass home ownership is automatically a good thing. It is not. People want to be mobile, the economy wants to be mobile, not everyone wants their assets tied up in a place where capital values might fall (as they will eventually).
ReplyDeleteThe other problem with home ownership is that the law (in practice) relating to leaseholds is a disaster. Freeholders spend their time screwing lessees -- and right to buy schemes often end up with bullying majority lessees who cause havoc. I would never advise anyone to buy a flat until the FTT take their role rather more seriously and the law is changed to allow long leasholders to assert their rights in practice rather than only in theory (which is never really owned anyway) - rather let a conventional landlord have the headaches.