Britain: no longer a nation of homeowners

As I write in my column in today’s Times [£],  one of the landmark moments that happened this year (without anyone seeming to notice) was that Britain’s home ownership rate dropped beneath the EU average (for the pre-accession 15 countries) for the first time on record.

In fact, Britain’s home ownership rate has fallen further and faster than any other country in Europe over the past decade (down by 9.3 percentage points since 2005 alone).

Given many people still have the impression that Britain has much higher home ownership than many other countries in Europe, the numbers are particularly striking. Doubly so, when you consider that so much of Government economic policy is in some way engaged with trying to increase home ownership. Indeed, that is still a goal of all of the major political parties. In fact, Britain’s

You can read more on it in the column, but here, for those who are interested, is an interactive map of various EU countries by their level of home ownership.