The end of landlords: the surprisingly simple solution to the UK housing crisis ( www.theguardian.com )

fireweed , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

One oversight by the article: changes in household size.

[Edit: I deleted an incorrect paragraph about population trends in the United States; I had misremembered a regional trend as a national one.]

For example, even if the housing supply and population in an area stay constant, if fewer people are living in each housing unit you’ll get a shortage. Yet nowhere in the article’s numerical analysis is there mention of this additional factor.

This is not to say that landlords aren’t a problem, but the entire premise of the article is that based on population and housing supply trends the supply “crisis” does not exist, which without incorporating changes in household size into their calculations is simply not a conclusion you can make.

mozz OP , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

Where are you getting this? To me it looks like household size dropped precipitously between 1947 and 1990, and then stabilized around 2.6 in 1990, and now it's around 2.5. I think rent has gone up a little more than 4% since 1990 though.

I actually would guess that you're probably right about an increase in single people or couples or empty nesters as compared with big families, but that it's been offset by a rise in young or semi-young adults living with roommates. That's just me guessing though.

fireweed , 3 months ago

You’re correct, I’ve amended my comment accordingly (I had mixed up demographic trends in California with national tends). However given that the article spends a lot of time comparing now and the 1970s, when there was a statistically significant difference in household size in the US, I feel that my point still stands, that we should know if there has also been a similar decrease in household size in the UK over the last half-century.