15% of Solihull people Rent - Is that Healthy?

Renting in the 1960s and 1970s was deemed unpopular. You either lived in a ‘Rigsby Rising Damp’ style bedsit with wood chip on the wall and a coin operated electric meter or, you lived in a council house. In the latter part of the 20^th Century, the British were persuaded they were wasting their money on rent payments. However, owning a home often makes less financial sense than renting and provides more flexibility.  The rate of homeownership has started to drop as stigma at to renting diminishes. In fact, of the 122,056 residents of Solihull, 19,113 of those rent their home from either the local authority/social provider or private landlords – meaning 15.65% of Solihull people are tenants.

The idea of homeownership has been historically embedded in the British soul, in fact 101,762 Solihull people live in an owner occupied property. Housing is at the heart of Government policy, with George Osborne promising 200,000 new properties a year. The plan is that this will allow first time buyers to purchase their first home.   Promising everybody their own home, has traditionally been at the heart of election campaigns for all parties and as a country, homeownership is the main goal of British life.

However, despite this more and more people are renting now a days, so are we turning to a more European way of living?  I believe as a country we are, in fact homeownership could be affecting your health! The UK, according to Bloomberg, only lies at number 21 in the list of healthy countries in the world.  Germany is at number 10 and Switzerland number 4 with homeownership at 52.5% and 44% respectively in those countries (in the UK it is 64.8%).

In the Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council area, 72.16% of homeowners who own their home outright said they were in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health whilst, at the other end of the scale, 7.05% said their health was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. Looking at renting, the census splits tenants into two types – 68.23% of Solihull local authority/social tenants said they were in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health and 11.97% were in ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health. Whilst ‘private rented tenants’ in Solihull, were the healthiest, as 87.39% of them described themselves in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health and only 3.56% were in ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health

I’m not suggesting that low homeownership rates in Switzerland and Germany are directly linked to health, but the stats do seem to suggest that with home ownership there is more stress. The numbers for Solihull do go some way to back up the argument and they are the same across the whole of the UK. Nonetheless I do think that substantially all of the upside to home ownership in recent years has been a function of monumental rising house prices. Now that's come to an end, it's hard to see why anybody would want to buy?

Renting is here to stay in Solihull and it’s growing incrementally each year. Even with the new tax rules for landlords, buy to let is still a viable investment option for most people in the town. There has never been a better time to purchase buy to let property in Solihull, but buy wisely. Gone are the days that you would make profit on anything with four walls and a roof.