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 20th 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.
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