High housing costs likely to play a role in the UK’s general election
The cost of housing is a big issue in the U.K. general election. Are people actually hopeful that politicians’ pledges could improve things?
This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.
If you want to understand the United Kingdom’s housing market right now, the best thing to do is go looking to buy a home.
Minreet Kaur is 43 and lives in a small two-bed house in London. She’s a full-time caregiver for her parents, and since her mom was diagnosed with blood cancer, she said her family needs more space. But she’s struggling to find a bigger house within her $770,000 budget that’s close to her mom’s hospital.
I spent a day viewing houses with Minreet. At the first property, she noted there wasn’t much light. “It was really dull, cracks in the walls,” she said.
On the way to our next viewing, Minreet told me that she’s sick of people telling her to move farther away from London.
“You can do that if it’s just yourself, but when you’re a carer, you’ve got your elderly parents, it’s just not feasible,” she said.
The Conservative Party, which is currently in government, is promising to waive a homebuyer tax for first-time buyers like Minreet for properties costing up to $540,000. But she’s looking in Slough, a town to the west of London, where average property prices are $570,000, so she’ll miss out.
“Where are you going to get a house in the area of London?” she said. “You’re not going to, you’re going to have to move really far.”
At house number two, which is listed for $598,000, Minreet isn’t impressed. “It’s going to need a lot of work,” she said.
The average property price paid by a first-time buyer in the U.K. last year was just over a quarter of a million dollars. Private rental costs have gone up more than 9%, according to the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics.
Peter Felix and his partner, Rebecca Wilson, are in their early 40s and have been renting together in the city of Birmingham for nearly three years.
“It’s quite depressing that you can go out and earn a decent wage, but not be able to afford to buy a property because your money is going towards the rent,” Peter said.
The opposition Labour Party says it wants to extend an existing scheme which helps people get a mortgage with a smaller deposit. But Peter said saving for even a small deposit is challenging.
“The rent will keep going up, and we know that every time the rent goes up, it means there’s less and less in our pocket to save,” he added.
Availability of public housing is another issue. Labour is promising more. But Osman Ahmadi, an Uber driver who’s been waiting for public housing for three years, is skeptical any change will happen.
“I have seen a lot of people,” he said. “I have all the letters, have all the proof, and nothing’s been done.”
Meanwhile, as Minreet finished her viewings for the day, she said she felt “deflated.”
“I didn’t like that at all,” she said. “It’s my biggest issue with the election. I just feel this is all I’m thinking about day in, day out, going round and round in circles, and I’m getting really depressed about it.”
According to U.K. price comparison website Moneyfacts, people in the U.K. spend on average more than a quarter of their disposable income on housing. That will be sure to play into many voting decisions on the U.K.’s election day this Thursday.