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Some thoughts: * Higher numbers of multigenerational households as young people cannot afford to move out, which will affect birth rates, compounding our problems with an ageing population and higher levels of taxation on working people. * Interventions on the demand side (help to buy schemes, longer mortgage periods, smaller deposits etc) will continue since they're politically easy to achieve. This will see house prices continue to rise rapidly and increase the deadweight loss in the economy (money that people would otherwise put to more productive uses to stimulate economic growth). * Increase in cramped living conditions as the existing stock of homes are divided up further into multiple occupancy homes, affecting quality of life and health outcomes. These are just some of the more obvious consequences, and they're frightening enough.

> Higher numbers of multigenerational households as young people cannot afford to move out, which will affect birth rates, compounding our problems with an ageing population and higher levels of taxation on working people. There was a documentary on this. Had a 3-generation family which had 4 grandparents, 2 parents and 1 child. They had such a small amount of space the grandparents had to share a bed. In the end some cooky old man who ran a factory which engage in a fair amount of modern slavery and had never heard of the HSE. He managed to con the kid into accepting his liabilities and fled off to retirement. They made a film about it -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBja3AbahY

You got me 😂

How much larger can mortgages get? Mine is 40 meaning I will havw my mortgage until 67, I would say i got my own place rather early for my generation, but i can't imagine banks allowing for mortgages into 70s.

When pensionable age changes to 75 and people are working until they die wanks won't mind.

Japan teaches that they can be multi generational

Hong Kong: almost 2x the prices of London, city centre and outside. Singapore: 1.5x the prices of London, outside city centre. In the city centre they are both the same. People somehow manage to live there. And there are more examples.

Youp, with fertility rate at 0.77, their fate is sealed. They are going to disappear, with remaining population coalescing into stronger entity (mainland China). Not a brilliant model to follow, unless you are into suicidal cults.

The future is terrifying.

The third one will also result in many other issues especially around public health - overcrowding is a significant contributor of diseases like typhus

I think Labour will fail to do much to change the situation and will not get a second term. The increasing desperation of most people under 50 will lead to a more extreme government being elected. The problems the UK has with housing, pensions and general opportunities for the younger members of society are the result of 30+ years of bad and sometimes deliberate mismanagement. They won't be fixed in less that 10-15 years and even that is with a huge concerted effort.

You have to bear in mind that for anyone with a house, actively voting for lower house prices may not be appealing. That's not to mention the people that publicly (and indulgently) "vote for more houses" while also campaigning until death that they aren't built anywhere near them.

The number of people who own a house as a proportion of the population is getting smaller. How many working tax payers without homes are prepared to keep the status quo in place? We are going to find out.

In 2021, 62.5%, (15.5 million ) of households owned the accommodation they lived in, 37.3% (9.3 million) rented their accommodation - cencus 2021 Still more people own than rent so might be another 10 years before anything changes.

I own a house. I would vote for lower house prices and rents, as it just makes sense. Yes, I will be in negative equity, but it's not an investment, it's my home. Once it's paid off it doesn't matter. If we have lower housing costs, people have money to spend, keeping the economy going. Right now we are just shoveling money into banks and landlords, this can't go on.

The population is growing and the number of properties being built is not keeping up, so there will be increased competition and cost for housing. What will society look like? Mad Max but with electric cars.

Came here to say Mad Max but without electric cars more like with the Smokers from Water world.

Depends if you're buying a house on a flood plain or not I suppose!

Very true 😂

They will run out of flood plains soon to build the new houses on . You couldn't make it up lol

As long as I get gills

There is more than enough housing stock in the UK for cover everyone. It’s just in the wrong hands…

The only people who think this are the ones who already have their own home..

Except empty properties are at record low levels but overcrowded housing including adults living with their parents and HMOs are at record levels.

Empty homes yes, but also Airbnb, portfolio bros, foreign investors and corporate cash investors buying up the cheaper 1 & 2 bed flats/housing that FTBs and young families usually go for PLUS not building social housing for rent, and extremely little affordable housing. It's a disaster for everyone. The country is in a mild recession. Remember, THEY ARE SITTING ON LAND AND PURPOSELLY NOT BUILDING HOMES - to keep prices and demand artificially high! The money is there to build but it's all going to the rich shareholders. ["The top 10 UK developers have paid just under £2bn in dividends and other investor payouts over the course of their most recent financial year"](https://inews.co.uk/news/gove-slams-housebuilders-hoarding-almost-a-million-plots-of-land-as-completely-unacceptable-2432202). This is by design. Disgusting.

Why is the population growing?

The population isn’t growing. Birth rates are falling and there aren’t anywhere near as many kids as there used to be. I’m a teacher and I’m worried about job security because there are just fewer and fewer kids.

We're getting lots of migrants still, above the rate of replacement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/30/uk-population-projected-to-grow-to-nearly-74m-by-2036 If the economy goes to shit I'd expect that to drop significantly and we'll have a different set of issues to contend with. I understand your concern about the lack of kids though. It's a demographic timebomb which is not exclusive to the UK. Turns out making the cost of living and raising kids too expensive discourages people from having kids! Who knew!

Yeah I read about how in Japan the sale of adult nappies has been higher than kids nappies for 10 years. Scary stuff!

that's probably pretty accurate here too. or will be. more pensioner nappies than kids nappies. makes sense. and then couples instead of having babies can adopt pensioners and change their nappies. ​ capitalism will celebrate

Heard a phone in on 5 Live a few weeks ago and a lady was properly losing it over the thought of taxpayer subsided child support. She was childless by choice (which is fine by me) but was then angry that her taxes were being used to allow parents that couldn’t afford kids to have kids, or at the least take a bit of the pressure off. Who does she think is going to be wiping her backside when she’s in a care home in 40 years time if there aren’t new kids being born. IMO, the government should be doing more to encourage people to have children, including financial support.

Encouraging the right people. Not the dregs of society.

I think her point is her contribution is disproportionally greater than each half of all families. As a childless adult i can at least empathise with her when considering the most egregious ingrates but as I reminded a colleague at work who didnt think he should have to pay for roads if he didnt drive a car, id like to not pay for schools since i dont have children but thats not really the way society works is it ?

Thing is everyone went to school so everyone has already benefitted from other people paying for them to go to school so you should pay that forward.

Thats a good point well made. Like I said thats not how society works so even tho a thought like that might occur in my brain its not how i think my society should be run. That was my point to the guy who doesnt think he should pay for roads if he doesnt drive cars. i guess without roads his supermarket wouldnt get food in it and he would starve. Regardless, Roads, schools police etc are necessary and the cost of doing business. If she or I am watching the documentary that was on UK TV about a family who had 16 kids and are complaining that they havent been given a bigger house, and saying they will have more kids well it ought to be easy to understand the offense.

Thats over simplified and missing that having children is a cumulative effect taxation wise. My parents paid tax, I pay tax, my kids will pay tax, their kids will pay tax etc. If my parents never had kids all that doesn't happen. The only reason low birth rates are not an unmitigated disaster is because we have immigration fulfilling a similar niche. However it's the same thing as those immigrants are more likely to have children etc. Yet it's a bit of a moral quandary as we brain drain other countries and get a double bite of the cherry by not raising kids and not paying for an immigrants upbringing.

> Who does she think is going to be wiping her backside when she’s in a care home in 40 years time if there aren’t new kids being born. Realistically, in 40 years? The entire population of North Africa (who are still having kids) and will have migrated to Europe as, due to climate change, that whole belt is unliveable. So it'll be that trade off. Human labour to where there is shortage. Which will be fine unless you are one of those "English arses for English nursing staff!" folks I guess... But really, that's more or less the NHS now, if you want an outstanding, qualified nurse prepared to work for NHS rates it's far more likely you'll get a Filipina. The Japanese will have just invented a robot that does it

I agree but you’re on Reddit, the home of the perpetually “child free”, so your comment will go down like cold sick

Where do you get your figures from that tell you that the population isn't growing? Just a simple search on Google states: 'The population of England was 57.1 million people in 2022, compared with 53.5 million people ten years earlier in 2012. Compared with 1971 the population of England has grown by more than ten million people'. Birth rates are very different according to the particular demographic you search under, and therefore it will very much depend on where your school is situated and the demographic of the local population whether birth rates are high, average or low in that particular area of the UK. But, population across the UK is increasing, all of the data shows that.

It's growing faster than ever, latest figures have an increase of around 600,000 people in the year to July 2022.

1mil starter homes in London.

In nicer areas of London this is long since past the case, even where I am in zone 2 this will get you either a wreck of a house or a nicer 2-3 bed flat. Nice 3-4 bed house is setting you closer to 1.5m which is kind of crazy when you think that needs a household income of £300k+

I think we'll continue making the same sorts of 'accommodations' that we have in the past 20 years. * More people will live in multigenerational households. * People will push back having children further and further. * There will be a continued migration from London/SE to lower cost areas of England. This will put pressure to maintain remote working. * Higher cost areas will continue to see a decline in facilities and leisure options as it becomes increasingly too expensive to run them. * Average living spaces will get smaller, with an increase in studio/one bed apartments.

Agreed. I’d add that people will borrow more and more, and spread it further and further. 95% mortgages spread over 40 years will become ever more common. Fewer people will be able to retire; routinely working into their 70s.

Continuing the smaller living spaces prediction; I think we will continue to see a rise in tiny houses, van lifers and people choosing semi-nomadic lifestyles. Especially after the pandemic has made it more acceptable to work from home. I also have a feeling commune-like communities will continue springing up. Loads of people either living for free or being paid smaller salaries to work on farms or ranches in exchange for housing, food and security. Or eco-villages / neighborhoods. That's been experimented with a bit in my country already. Like one city has an eco-neighborhood where the rent is really cheap and the apartments aren't the greatest, but in exchange you have to participate in the maintenance of the neighborhood and the community. Like the people there trade services and lend things to each other instead of hiring or buying. There are also two eco-villages that I know of. They have individual houses, but are designed with community as the centerpiece. Like the neighbours have to participate in a democratic board that decides how the neighborhood runs. Like how they can make their own produce, what to do with waste etc.. They also share cars and can "book" a car when you need one, or plan a carpool so more people can join errands or go places. They even have to take courses in conflict solving before they're allowed to move in. Or maybe we'll get "modern" trailer parks that rent out cheap spots for tiny houses and the like. I've even seen a student renting a smaller sailboat that is docked because it's cheaper than apartments. It'll be interesting to see what solutions people will migrate to. I have to say I don't hate the concept of a tiny house either, but then I'd at least want some space around me and not be cramped into a trailer park.

My crystal ball tells me we will have more inequality between the rich and the poor, family money will be more important than ever, and filling certain roles in places like London will become harder and harder, because it will make even less financial sense to work as a nurse or teacher in London.

I can't recommend Gary's economics enough. He talks about the skyrocketing wealth inequality potentially turning us into places like Brazil or India where everybody has to live in the cities where the rich live because the rich have all the money. The majority live in massive slums. As a former top trader he has and continues to make millions realising our economy will not recover while wealth inequality keeps rising. Everyone predicts a recovery, he does not. Remember the media economists always predicting a house price slump that never comes? That is because the rich have so much and they are buying all the housing assets.

Gary Stevenson? I find he says some interesting things but his book The Trading Game was a massive disappointment. He came across as a troubled young man with a big chip on his shoulder, who failed to realise the impact his job was having on his mental health

+1 for Gary's economics. To be a good trader, you must be slightly autistic which he clearly is but his prediction are generally how I see things playing out. As soon as rates get cut even a little bit the cash from the wealthiest people will start buying up assets again and everyone standing on sidelines waiting for the crash will be shit out of luck before they even realize what happened. The scale will tip into the favour of mega rich once again and inequality will become even worse.

I saw this on a recent business trip from UK to Orange County, California (the gold standard of dysfunctional housing markets). A MARRIOTT hotel was serving a pretty disappointing breakfast on paper plates and cups. The hotel was almost $1000 for 6 nights. I asked myself why and concluded that it’s because salaries for low-skilled hospitality workers are too poor to attract anybody to this HCOL area. It makes more business sense to just throw the plates away instead of paying somebody the right wage to clean dishes. That’s the UKs South East direction of travel, mark me.

Inequality is not a problem, at all. The problem is the lowest rung not having enough. You fix that by raising them up, not by punishing those at the top which is easier and politically popular but utterly counter-productive.

You need to do both tbh. Those at the very top aren’t paying their fair share, they are asset hoarding rentiers offering very little ‘real value’ to society. Assets/capital gains tax. Increase it and close the loopholes. Stop letting PE finance houses/asset managers get their grubby mitts on all of society’s ESSENTIAL services.

Wealth inequality is broadly fine. Wealth inequality at today's extreme level is a serious problem, and only a shift of taxation to reduce this distortion will alleviate the corresponding immiseration of those on the bottom rung.

A lot of flats

Except rightnow new flats ares selling at house price!

Is anyone buying them at that price?

Yeah, flats go for well over home report where I bought mine.

Weird, I’m seeing the opposite where I live. Developers keep offering money off

Likewise. Maybe op is London based? 

London is even worse, flats are absolutely tanking

Basically current flat owners overpaid. It’s really interesting. I’ve seen some sell at big loss and others still tryna sell at extortionate price  

I know. I actually wonder if in the long-term future we will end up living in rooms. It's depressing

Rooms with adverts for walls....im sure ive seen something like this on tv

With absurd service charges and regular construction panics like cladding. There’s a risk flats become a real problem in the housing market.

The gap between buying a flat and house will be to great for most people in the future. Lots will buy a flat hoping to upgrade to a house and just never will. I'm currently in a flat with my fiance and we'll be looking at houses in 3 years time. As much as I hate that a 3 bed house in a decent road is 500k near me, we'll be able to afford it and I'm happy that we're not another 10 years younger.

No one thinks long-term. They think that flats can accommodate so many more people in a small space compared to houses.

probably having to hark back to the olden days where folk couldnt afford to move out to their own home or where care homes werent as much of a thing due to costs. therefore i see things going as: - more nuclear families, folk not being able to afford their own home and conversly old parents either not being able to afford to go to a care home or because they have their kids at home, just everyone staying together. - kids going back to sharing rooms. nowadays if space gets tight, you buy a bigger house, however i can see it going back to the days where kids just shared rooms, bunk beds etc. - government creating more deregulation in house building. probably allowing green and brown spaces to be built upon which may help. however i dont really see any government doing much to ease house supply - tourism and hospitality industry heavily affected as folk will have less spare cash. already seeing this trend already. will create even more dead spaces around towns which in turn may create more space for housing such as flats/apartments so city centres will eventually evolve to be less about shopping but evolve into housing. - pension age rising again. aging society so again pension age will rise as the government struggle to keep up with pension/benefits payments.

I didn't consider your first 2 points before but that really makes alot of sense. Very interesting.

yeah youre possibly right, maybe our culture doesnt quite suite nuclear families especially if we compare it to other countries and cultures like india. perhaps folk will still aim to move out but will just take them longer to move say, in their 30s rather than straight away. problem is that they'll end up having to rent or be laden with huge mortgages that they'll be paying off when theyre dead. unfortunately all costs are going up but life expectancy isnt going to be past 70-80 on average so theres got to be a limit somewhere! perhaps ppl will not see the point in paying into a pension to free up money, if their mortgage is well into their 70s-80s. even the whole retirement concept is a relatively new thing so that may erode eventually but i dont see that happening anytime soon.

You basically described what is happening in Italy. Although the conditions are not identical, housing is still unaffordable for many people, especially young. Also elderly care is non-existent or super expensive. It is extremely common to live with your parents in your early 30s, out of 6 close friends in their 30s, only 2/6 live by themselves, both in apartments owned by their parents in another town (no rent, shorter commute). It is also common for over 50s to move your elderly parents in. Basically as soon as one of the two dies and the other is not completely self sufficient, you sell their house and move them with you. The house money will probably go entirely on care when the condition of the elderly person is between what you can manage and what the state says is enough to get access to public care. This whole situation comes in different degrees, some really sad. There's plenty of "abandoned" elderly people unfortunately and many of us young have moved abroad. As for the UK I would be curious to see how the emigration of immigrants will impact the demographic. I expect a lot of us (me included) to leave the country at or before retirement. Is the new immigration going to replace all of us? How will that impact housing, taxes revenue, and so on? Really hard to predict in my opinion.

You also have new immigrants that will escape horrendous visa fees etc after 2 years realising grass is much greener in another country. That is what I'm currently doing

Yeah but that doesn't really change the balance of things really. Most of the immigrants I know don't plan to stay here after retirement. Most of these are skilled workers earning good wages. It's likely that those with an actual decent pension pot to spend on retirement will go away and leave being all those less wealthy. Whether this will be significantly impacting the state balance I don't know. Just out of curiosity (if you don't mind me asking), where are you headed to?

i can see the parents moving into their kids homes as it kinda suites both sides. A the kids will be able to pay for their parents costs and B it may help to pay off a large chunk of their mortgage to help them become mortgage free for retirement. i personally was also looking to emigrate after retirement as i can see my money going alot further elsewhere. i was looking at india where things are still relatively cheap and hiring a helper/maid around the house to support me in retirement is very affordable compared to the UK. but yeah youre right its really hard to predict but i can see the trend already for folk staying at home longer and finding a way to unlock their parents equity that suites the children and the parents.

South Europe will be the retirement destination of the rest of Europe. With east Europe as a retirement destination for southern Europeans. There also to consider the increasing amount of DINKs, no kids no commitment, you are not bound to a country because of that.

To add to the tourism and hospitality point, in tourist hot spots in the UK, it's very difficult for a hospitality worker to afford housing. So business also suffer from struggling to employ staff or retain staff- obviously for less skilled roles, they can employ teenagers/early 20 somethings who live at home, but for something more skilled but not amazingly well paid (e.g. chef) it can get pretty difficult to recruit. And that can lead to holiday-makers etc having less good experiences, over time massively damaging the industry.

It will be same like in Australia and Canada, the prices of the house will increase x2.5 at least. Look at house prices, for example the price of the 3b house in 1959 was 300 pounds, not it cost 450k.

Got family in Canada. Sister moved to house in Missisauga in Toronto 20 years ago bought it for 250k now it's almost million. No of young ppl can afford it with student loan to be paid off. It's crazy there

I spent a couple years living in New Zealand which is similar, in fact as they have lower wages than Aus I think it might actually be worse. It felt like looking into the future of the UK housing market and it made me realise if I don't get on the ladder in the next year or two I've probably missed my opportunity. I genuinely can't see it getting better for decades, but I'd love to be wrong.

Completely agree. I lived in Aus for many years although we’re now back in the UK. We have family in Sydney and Melbourne, family on the northern beaches of Sydney, which is typically expensive anyway, recently appraised their house for $3.6m, it’s a 3.5 bed detached. They bought it for $600k 15 years ago. Family in Melbourne; just outside the CBD, 3 bed townhouse sold for $3.3m, they bought a villa in QLD to retire in for $300k. It’s all generational wealth in those HCOL cities. Unless your parents can give you a leg up, it’s very difficult for young people to get on the property ladder. One of my colleagues in Sydney bought a house up the coast in Newcastle on a BTL mortgage, whilst he and his wife rented in Sydney. All so they could build enough equity to eventually buy in Sydney. Both were on above average salaries too. Housing costs were one of the factors we considered before moving back home. The UK is bad but Australia is significantly worse.

Australian living in the UK. 2 years ago, I bought a 3 bed victorian terrace 2.5 km from the city centre for £182k. If in Australia, it would have been 4 times the price.

Without a doubt! It’s insanity. I lived around the lower north shore when we lived in Sydney, and our 1 bed, 1 bath unit with astronomical strata costs in North Sydney was sold whilst we were renting it, $990k 😂 it was nice, we had great views of the harbour but it was about 30sqm of floor space. For a million dollars. It’s absolutely outlandish. Plus LMI and (for us) foreign investor fees. My partner and I are in process of buying here at the minute, £135k for a 2 bed semi in our rural northern town on a nice cul de sac. The whole cost of the house is literally not even enough for a deposit on a house in Sydney.

I have the original deed from when the previous owners of my house bought in in 1962. It was at the time a new build 3 bed with front and back gardens, a driveway and a garage. They paid £6,750 for it. I bought it two years ago at the price of £272,000...

Adjusted for inflation £6,750 in 1962 is £120,622.60 in today's money, so yeah that's pretty fucked the house is more than double that.

What's even more fucked is that the house hasn't been modernised since it's construction. So on top of buying it we've spent about £40k in modernising and it's still not done. And we've only been able to afford that thanks to the deaths of 1 great grandparent, 7 grandparents, and generous gifts from our families.

The .01% will have more property and money.

8 years ago my friend bought a large 3 bed house for £235k, no work needed. Today my budget is also around £235k and that gets me a grotty 1-2 bed that needs work. It is a really sad state of affairs. The FTB market is still hot here, so anything on the lower end is getting pushed up heavily. I'm not sire about the higher end. With the way things are moving, I'm better off not being picky and just buy something... Anything this year.

That 235k 8 years ago is about 310k of value now. Sadly the pound is devaluing just as quick as houses are going up relatively speaking.

Yes we are being truly pummelled up the backend.

Yeah it’s crazy - we bought our house in 2011 for £125k and a neighbour has just put their identical house on the market for £270k. I feel really bad for anyone looking to buy a house at the moment - they’re going up quicker than the majority can save for a deposit.

I mean, its pretty awful now. Speaking as a 30-something who had to bite the bullet and move back in with my folks to even stand a chance of one day owning a house. All the way through my 20's I rented in the belief "just work hard and it will work out". What a load of utter rubbish that turned out to be. Honestly, now I have the deposit sort-of saved........is it worth it? Paying SO MUCH money and getting in so much debt for some shitty, drafty old terrace or a new-build death-trap seems insane. Because this country is either going to change radically over the next 10 years, or there wont be much left for "normal" people.

"You will own nothing and be happy."

To be fair if you rented rather than owned a flat in a building with flammable cladding, or service charges that went up a thousand per cent in 5 years, you WOULD be happier not owning.

Flammable cladding thing is real. Can you imagine not being able to sell so suddenly and not being able to do anything about it? Would be awful.

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It feels like people like you forget that access to housing is actually a human right. It’s not about debt or investment, it’s shelter that we should all have access to, amongst other things.

Man I feel you on the car thing. Owning a car has brought me a lot of happiness but it’s an incredibly dumb financial decision. Abroad at the moment, about to rent a far nicer car than the one I own, it’s nice.

That's what they have been telling us. 😏

House prices will spiral because not enough are being built to keep up with demand (we must build more homes but prioritise social housing, not building an estate of half a million pound 4 bed detached properties miles from any amenities. Slightly off topic but I believe any housing construction must consider the environmental impact first, for example, no woodlands, wetlands or meadows to be turned into housing, just utilise bare fields or disused industrial/retail land) As a result of the spiraling cost of housing, whether that be renting or ownership, people will therefore be staying with mum and dad for longer, and put off having families, reducing the birth rate further and increasing the tax burden on the working class. This will then cause a pension crisis, and with less money in peoples pockets, tourism, leisure and entertainment facilities will fall into decline and close. With all this, the economic gap between the lowest and highest earners will increase considerably, this country is ran so those at the top earn disgustingly high profit margins for doing nothing beneficial to society, and earn even when socioeconomic conditions mean everyone else feels the pinch. As a result of this perfect storm of shit, an economic collapse on a scale we’ve not seen in some time will occur. And nothing will change this, British people are too apathetic about disrupting the ruling class. At most we will get more extreme political divides and possibly a hard right party getting voted in. We need to take a leaf out of Frances book and burn the country to the ground until the elite scum at the top can be scared into making society fit for purpose again.

* Building any type of housing helps affordability, [this is extremely well documented](https://data.london.gov.uk/housing/research-notes/hrn-10-2023-the-affordability-impacts-of-new-housing-supply-a-summary-of-recent-research/), because even 'luxury' housing creates a chain of movers. Nothing is achieved by permitting only cheap-to-build homes except reducing average living space for the occupants. * You'd be hard-pressed to find any examples of building over woodlands or anything of that kind. But there's not enough brownfield land (ie. land that's previously been built on) in the places people want to live, so we have to be prepared to build on greenfield sites to solve the housing crisis.

A net 60,000 new arrival every month (who knows what the attraction is of this dank wet nation), so demand is always outstripping supply

This thread is really depressing. I am late thirties and still at home. I can't see myself ever moving out as a single person and am terrified of being at home forever and becoming a carer. Especially when I have my own health issues.

The birth rate will fall further as people won't be able to afford to move to larger houses, whether renting or buying. We already have a situation where people are putting off starting families when renting is so insecure and it's also a case of prioritising saving for a deposit vs the cost of childcare, it's likely that fewer people will be able to afford to do it. Especially if it becomes more common to houseshare as a couple rather than have your own place. Younger people who can may leave the country - it's happening to an extent in Ireland now where young professionals have gone from renting their own place to housesharing to roomsharing and decided 'fuck that'. Though most big cities seem to be going through the same thing. More people renting or paying off mortgages into retirement, and fewer properties available to be sold to fund care home fees, is going to be a massive budget issue in years to come.

If nothing changes the uk will continue to go the same way south africa did. Home ownership will become out of reach to most but those that can will have to live in gated communities with onsite security. Mass formation of ethnic ghettos and no go areas. Mass poverty and the continuous clash of the haves and have nots, welcome to the future.

Welcome to bradford

Essentially more of the same House prices have risen because of a shortage of supply. There's more to it than that (interest rates, immigration, life expectancies, landlords etc all play a part) but fundamentally it's primarily a supply and demand issue with other factors playing into either the supply or the demand Realistically it seems to me like house prices have roughly maxed out relative to wages in terms of how much a bank can safely loan someone (4.5x income for non-high-earners), so I don't think we're going to see such dramatic increases *relative to wages* as we've seen in the last 20 years continuing, simply because as much as people are competing on the demand side, they just can't borrow more money. So to some extend I'd expect to see house prices broadly trend up in line with earnings However we will continue to see prices rise relative to earnings *somewhat* by virtue of the fact that the housing shortage is not getting better. We still build fewer houses than we need to keep up with the current increasing demand, never mind catching up with that shortfall. To pull some numbers out of thin air for the sake of argument and easy maths: let's say that right now 50% of people can afford a house: over time that will go down to 49%, 48%, 45% etc because demand continues to grow while supply is lagging behind. That means that whereas now the price is roughly around what a 50th-percentile earner can afford, it will increase to what a 55th-percentile earner can afford The only way I think prices change *very* significantly relative to earnings is if companies move in more heavily to buy up houses to rent out. IMO that's a huge risk to the UK housing market and future generations

We've had a boner for the Victorian era so long it's coming back.

Looking at some historical figures I've seen for average house prices in the UK, I calculate that in 10 years' time the value will be about £400k, up from £291k-plus today (an increase of 37%). My rough calculations also show that the average wage will have risen by 32% in 10 years. I came to the approximate figure of £400k by looking at the rate of increase between 2019 and 2024 and projecting forward in time. However, over the next decade the population will presumably increase more rapidly than it did between 2019 and 2024, and more rapidly than the number of new houses being built, so the average price of a house in the UK will probably be a lot more than £400k. So it is safe to say that it will get increasingly difficult for a young person to buy his or her first home. The effect on society will be that fewer young people will be able to follow their dream career unless it is high paying. Jobs that need a degree and that once paid people enough for them to buy a house will reduce in number and will increasingly be attractive only to recent immigrants.

We’re fucked unless immigration comes down. We can’t sustain half a million new people every year.

Looks like we're f\*cked then. According to the Office for National Statistics the population of the UK, "is projected to rise by 6.6 million to 73.7 million over the next 15 years to mid-2036". That's a 10% increase from 2021 to 2036. Where will all those people be housed? It seems to me that since Britain always fails to build enough houses each year, the price of property will always go up more than wages do. So the dream of owning a home will only ever get further and further out of the reach of young people. Or, to put it another way, the average age of first-time buyers will just keep increasing.

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London's homelessness problem will look increasingly like San Francisco's. The whole shitting and shooting up on the street thing probably happens already sometimes but it's not yet commonplace - that is probably coming. This is an artefact of having a large body of long term homeless in an urban area who lose hope and self respect and attempt to self medicate with drugs. There may be shantytowns popping up like the one in Oakland CA - depending on local government tolerance. The government and media will segment into the "propertied left" who want to solve the problem with more anti drug programs and mental health clinics and the "propertied right" who will try to dump them out of sight. The future overton window will be shaped around acknowledging that there is a problem, but it will attempt to deflect blame from the landowning classes and on to something else - maybe the suffering individuals themselves ("they needed to take personal responsibility"), some sort of diffuse "mental health crisis" or perhaps even a foreign power. Many of the suffering individuals will likely develop an attraction to far right politics. There is nothing like years of constant economic humiliation to drive hard right recruitment. I expect the far right parties will grow and lead to more political earthquakes (Brexit/UKIP was a tremor). The only way I see this changing is if there is a large and well organised protest movement similar to the one Gabriel Bouric led in Chile to end student fees. The cost of living protests are probably too diffuse - "stuff costs too much" doesn't translate into a solid call to action that fixes the problem. We would need something ultra focused that was rowdy (potentially violent) and very, very targeted that singled out and provided an enormous and directed political threat to the British landowning classes. I don't really see that happening. This has all happened before. Ultimately what hit the reset button (in many countries) last time was world war 2.

Not long ago you never got tents on London streets. The odd rough sleeper, but not more than that. There is an underpass in Croydon town centre that's essentially an encampment now. Feels like at some point, as a society, we just accepted that's how it is now.

You’re talking rubbish https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_City_(London)

May 68 started with 1 university closing. Within a month a third of the population was on strike and the military was considering backing the revolt. A cost of living crisis movement should be a piece of piss to get going. Think it starts when Labour’s honeymoon period ends.

Shitting on the street, shooting up in public and being dirty is not in London as we do not treat homeless people with the utter disgust and disdain of the USA. I was horrified by how awful life is for homeless in the US. It's not exactly a picnic anywhere, but it's definitely a lot worse in the bay area.

A two bed terrace with a garden the size of a shoe and on-street parking will be £400,000,000 . The average salary will be £30k

I genuinely just think it's going to (for the most part) get worse in terms of affordability with the disparity between average salary and average house price just growing. I think the number of places where locals are getting pushed out due to gentrification and just a general inability to afford living there anymore will grow massively and it will be near impossible for one person, or a single income household to buy a house alone- this is already the case in some areas. I was going to say the difference in 10 years probably won't be massive, but looking at the past 10 years...my parent bought their house for around 150k in 2012 and the houses in our street now always go for between 200-250. So 50-100k rise in 10 years! I don't think the average salary in the area will have risen even 10k in that time

10 years can make quite the difference. I want to start by prefacing this comment and saying I don't intend to brag, as I am in 100% agreement with the vast majority here, that housing prices are ridiculous and something needs to change pretty quickly. 11 years ago, we only managed to get on the property ladder thanks to shared ownership, and we ended up buying a 50% share of a 2 bed semi in a quiet cul de sac. Our share cost us £100k (full property value at that time was 200k) We stayed in that property for 10 years almost to the day, selling up last year to relocate. We was expecting to maybe get £110k back, so a nice little 10 grand profit. When the valuation of the property came back, we was gobsmacked. The full market value of the property was £410,000, meaning our share net us £ £205,000, so we made 105k in ten years just by living there. This allowed us to clear all of our debts, relocate to our ideal location, and buy our dream house. We are thankful for getting on the ladder the way we did, and extremely lucky. But even so, I think it's absolutely absurd that property prices can double in 10 years, and we know our 9yo daughter won't ever be able to afford her own home, and we aren't in the position to financially support in that aspect. However we know that when we are no longer around, she will inherit this home, which she can either use as her own home mortgage free, or sell up for a nice lump sum and be financially stable.

I'm glad you managed to get onto the property ladder when you did. It is absolutely ridiculous how difficult it's getting to buy a home - something which is a very basic human need). >we know our 9yo daughter won't ever be able to afford her own home, I recently had a conversation with a family member about this because although they have a nice home (bought over 15yrs ago, probably worth like 750k now), they were worrying about their kids not ever being able to afford to live in the same/surrounding area because by the time they're old enough to move out/earn their own money, the average 3-bed semi could be worth around 1 million. And there is absolutely no way even 2 adults on a good/decent (middle-class) salary can afford a house at that price or even qualify for a mortgage anywhere near that amount. Even if you did manage to work for long enough to save a 10-20% deposit on such a property, you would probably be too old to qualify for a mortgage anyway because it would just take that long. The way things are going, it will definitely become impossible for the average person to own a house in some areas.

absolutely agree. We were very lucky. But I certainly don't wish to rub that in other people's faces, and I truly do feel for those trying to get on the ladder now. I'd happily go in to negative equity with the value of our property if it meant others could begin to afford a home of their own.

If it stays as it is, in ten years, nothing will change. You'll have thousands queing to rent one bedsit. You'll have people illegally subletting in HMOs and lots of newbuild flats with shoddy workmanship. Mortgage rates will stay medium to high and the pension triple lock means investment is cut and national services start to properly crumble. The pensioner or middle income homeowner is almost a first class citizen while everyone else without property is a second class citizen.

Exactly what you can see happening now - a lot of mid-high rise apartment blocks that rent only, with ever increasing charges, because the price to purchase property will simply be too high for the average person. The economy will likely worsen over this period for the average person because they've less disposable income due to being at the mercy of increasing expenses. The Government need to tax the assets on the ultra wealthy, and find a way to bridge the wage gap to property prices without simply increases wages and tanking the economy. If they don't, the UK will find itself in a position where citizens move abroad to countries where they can get a significant pay boost in their profession relative to property price / disposable income. In short. A lot more inequality. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer. Those in the middle will slowly find themselves trickling towards being less rich unless they are savvy with investments.

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I would say that one of the reasons that high interest rates didn't dent house prices, is because steps were taken to protect homeowners- which meant that as demand increased, supply basically just went down as well. A lot of people just put off selling, which is why prices basically just stagnated. Obviously no-one wants people to lose their homes, but in the "credit crunch", the reason house prices did go down is (in part) because cheaper housing came on to the market via reposession, and/or people were motivated to sell at lower prices. Last year, there was a \*lot\* of protection for those struggling with higher interest rates, hence many people just sitting tight and waiting things out. There's also lots of people who did, say, a 5 year fix in 2022, still paying lower rates. Interest rates are slowly falling, but I actually still think there's \*potential\* to see some impact from them on house prices this year- obviously very area dependent, though. In terms of predictions: -Serious issues in tourist areas with so many homes becoming air bnbs. It'll either become less profitable, for whatever reason, or you'll increasingly have towns/villages where young people just can't live, which will be a demographic nightmare for these places! Potentially a negative impact on the UK tourist industry as a whole because businesses can't employ staff, etc. -More young people getting priced out of various areas- which will lead to increased pressure towards remote/hybrid working. If you only have to go into the office, let's say, one day a week, you can live in a town further out and deal with a pretty horrendous commute for one day (for example). There are still a lot of places where you can buy, especially as a couple, on reasonably average salaries. As much as a lot of companies/orgs want workers back in the office, I don't think it'll happen because it'll make recruitment etc too difficult. -Yes, more multigenerational living, but also more acceptance of things like kids sharing bedrooms. Up until very recently, this was the norm, and I think we'll go back to seeing it as the norm. But also more 1 child families (which relates to childcare costs, too). -More homelessness- not necessarily on the streets, although yes, that too, as well as people living in tents etc. But things like van living, living in holiday parks (which technically isn't allowed, but I already know of families doing it). Perhaps even a rise of "trailer park" type living as is seen in parts of the US. -A bigger split between those who get a large inheritance from parents with which to buy, and those who don't. This isn't just about parents renting vs owning, but also about how many siblings you have, house value, whether it gets sold to pay for care, how financially stable your parents are in general (e.g. did they do a massive equity release to fund their retirement).

“Sign up to your bank’s housing scheme. For a monthly payment of £2500 you could enjoy a rustic house share in Shropshire, or enjoy city living in your own urban house starting at £16500 a month. **£600,000 security deposit required. Your pets and close relatives are at risk if you fall behind on payments. Full terms and conditions are available and you will be deemed not suitable for any scheme if you request them. You will never own any property you pay for. Ever”

The dreamer in me wants to see the high-paying jobs leave the US and shift over to Europe with the majority ending up in the UK given we speak the language. In reality, the average house price: 400k, the average salary: 38k. We continue to return to a time when the majority of people rent but replacing councils with private tenants. Then at some point 50 year mortgage become a thing and it's widely accepted that you buy a house on a 50+ year mortgage, then when your kids leave home downsize to a smaller property to go mortgage free.

See Canada now. Crazy high rentals. Tent cities. Very high prices.

We'll be like Hong Kong where house prices are unaffordable for young people and those who can get a property will be those working in high level positions at a young age and being backrolled by middle class parents which will be small flats that just about enough space to meet legal requerments. Those who don't own will live in multi generational homes which will cause a mental health epedemic and those who live out on rent will be leveraging credit cards to pay for any unexpected costs. All these problems can also lead to burglary and even more petty theft than there already is. Basically the ministers and corporate giants will make a lot of money overcharging rent, home owners will keep their properties and sell it the moment they need money to retire in Spain, government will lose out in productivity and tax revenue but won't care becuase the people in power are getting rich. This country will turn into a thirld world country in Burbury clothing.

Banks will become landlords, we will have nothing and be happy

I’m strongly predicting a major period of violence within the next 10 years based on the mismanagement of the country. As it stands, the government doesn’t provide a single public service that is satisfactory. The NHS crisis, education is poor, policing is poor, the courts are abysmal, and the outlook is only looking worse. Pensions and benefits will not continue in the capacity that they currently do, because it isn’t sustainable. University students will increasingly be drowned in debt, like the US currently is, and privatised services will continue to steal money away from the public. But all of that is fine if you own a house. Because that house is only going to get more valuable as time goes on. No matter how bad the trains are, or the hospitals, or the universities, or the police, you have something to your name which will be 3 times the value as when you bought it when you eventually decide to sell. The problem is that the current young generations do not have that incentive. Why put up with a country that does nothing satisfactorily, and also has no incentive for you to support it. Your tax is wasted and you don’t see a fraction of the worth that you put in. As so comes riots, and violence. The French do it the best, but I think more countries will take notes. It’s only a matter of time, and I’ve no clue what’ll come out of it, but it will happen

There is also the issue of paying contractors for everything from gardening and window cleaning to plumbing and builders. As living costs increase, paying for these services will become even more unaffordable, things like controlled parking zones mean a van with it's tradesman needs to pay £15 + for a call out, for parking. I see a situation where simple building work, not certified electricians or gas stuff, will soon cost £400 a day. I know of a project manager who was asked to oversee a bathroom renovation two years ago in a flat in Notting Hill. The owner was a wealthy retired :lady'. Started as just a new shower, toilet and tiling, tiny bathroom, the final job cost was 27,000 pounds. She made no ridiculous demands or anything out of the ordinary.

Why would a bathroom renovation need a project manager? Crazy.

To manage the different contractors I think, lighting, fitters...

I think we’ll see homeless encampments starting to spring up all over the country; an increase in the ‘van life’; and parents extending existing homes and/or building tiny homes in their gardens.

This is what I was asking 10 years ago! 🙂 I'm sure things can get a lot worse. In the early 2010s loads of Spanish, greek and Italian people cane to the UK because there was no work in their countries. I reckon we'll be in their position, except we're not allowed to go to Europe to look for work

Mass emigration of young people who want to live independently and or start families

A smaller percentage of people will own a greater proportion of the available houses and private rents will go up set in large part by the desire of those people. I personally think selling social housing done during thatchers era is the single biggest factor in the frankly ridiculous cost of houses. I was hoping quite hard that it was all going to normalise somewhat after 2008 but for my money nothing really happened after the UK government bailed out at east one bank who should have been allowed to go bust and everything went back to the way it was before Corbyn at least had a plan to build more new houses than any of the other majors. I feel like the cost of houses is the single biggest factor in the tightening belts of the poorest and that he therefore should have been a shoe in. I personally doubt that a lot of people who voted know he had a manefesto pledge to build 400,000 houses in a year, and that the lib dems were talking about 150,000, the conservative government we voted in had a plan to build 100,000.

With inequality growing small towns outside the south east will die off more and more. You can't have a town unless you have customers to buy from businesses that in turn employ people. If you pay 90% of your take home on rent/mortgage and utilities then you aren't a customer. People will move closer to those places rich people live to get jobs. Think about countries with high inequality. Tiny affluent centres with vast sprawling poor regions that are tuning into slums. Charles Dickens here we come!!!!!

More and more properties will be owned by fewer people. Educated people will emigrate and UK will become a shit hole.

If nothing changes in 10 years there will be another net 10 million immigrants to house. Even if they couple up that's still 5 million new houses. We will have built 2 million new houses. A shortage of between 3 and 8 million houses, plus those required for the domestic population. That can only mean more shared housing. The debate will become at what point single family social housing becomes unsustainable and that, as the private sector already has, begins to focus on house sharing. Purchase prices will rise, and rental costs will absolutely soar. Tl;Dr nothing good.

Where will we build 2 million new houses? :’)

Just look at places which are overcrowded and poor. The signs are all the same. It will be undignified and brutal

If extrapolate all the data points we come to the conclusion that ‘You will not own anything and you will be happy.’

IKEA house. Flat pack, built in a matter of days, planning permissions rules changes, house builders forced to either put the land they own to use or lose it to private auction to the general public

Let me consult my crystal ball and Time Machine

ONS claims 6 million net migrants over the next 10 years. You will own nothing and be happy. Now get in your pod and eat your bugs, citizen

House prices can't keep on going up forever eventually people will refuse to pay the prices and it will have to come down to some extent for people to even make a sale unless they want to die with the house and pass it down or just get there money back currently people are in a dream world and have been for many years but it only lasts so long

There's a long way to go. I live in Asia and the city I'm currently living in has a price-to-income ratio that is over double London's property market. So things are about 2 times more unaffordable. I don't think people realize just how bad things are going to get.

On the face of it - prices will continue to increase through inflationary and "supply and demand" factors, leading to the average FTB age increasing, fewer owner occupiers and more renters, more corporate landlords, and perhaps a rise in multi-generation households. I believe inheritance could have an interesting effect when the current generation of homeowners inevitably pass on their wealth to a relatively small number of people, given that people have tended to have fewer and fewer children over time. Is that going to result in further widening of the gap between those with and those without? It would be easy to forget the struggle of renting once you've been gifted a sum large enough to buy a property outright; people who are politically aligned today to improving renting and making housing more affordable could quickly shift their views once they become homeowners.

It is, and the lottery of parental (or grandparental) wealth is massive. Parents bought in London in the 90s or before? You're quids in, you've likely already "borrowed" a deposit from them and have a decent job in the city. You probably saved a few years rent too before you bought. Parents from Barnstaple? Yeah you're going to be living in a town with limited employment opportunities and real problems moving away as the rents are so high.

This is going to be a huge problem. For entire swathes of the population, quality of life won’t be determined by the job you have, it will be determined by what you will inherit. That will further exacerbate productivity issues as lots of people won’t be motivated by PAYE salary increases anymore.

Absolutely. Why even bother working in the UK You can inherit 650k tax free (which people complain is too low a threshold), that's the same as your total earning for 17 years even on a pretty good wage of **£50k**. Earn an average £35k and it's 24 years total income. That's obscene amount of generational wealth. Why bother working in a country which doesn't reward work.

And what’s worse, it will create a two-class system. Those that will have work full time, live frugally and put aside a portion of their salary, every month, for decades to support themselves in the future. And those that will are set to inherit a small fortune, and are therefore free from the burden of financial prudence entirely.

I think people will live in more extended family groups. Kids living with parents until they are 30+ and elderly relatives living with their kids. I think what it depends on is immigration, building and reforming leaseholds. If they reformed the leasehold system and we densities cities that could make a massive difference. I am hoping that’s what will happen. We will either live smaller in flats or live bigger in massive family units.

Don't worry about 10 years time.

Noone own anything completely. You will have a fraction share in the property which coown by some form of company. You still earn your equity growth through the share. Only until the point where noone can own anything then it will be a complete rental market.

We're going to see large shanties happening like in US cities

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NZ is a paradise compared to the UK.

More homeless people and more families living in sub standard properties and bnb's

It's going to look a lot like that movie The Time Machine, with a bunch of green hairy people living in caves

It will look like today because nothing will have changed. Do you mean what will society look like if things continue to change at the same rate and trajectory as the recent past?

I personally don't think we have a housing supply issue per say. Our bigger problem is concentration of cities. We need Tier 1 2 3 4 city model. So that opportunities are more evenly distributed across the country.

Answer’s in the question. If nothing changes, it will look exactly how it looks right now.

What it looks like now plus inflation and modest price increases

Nature and Brexit will take care of everything. Go back to sleep.

Depends how the boomer inheritance all falls

How will the supply have changed ? How will the demand have changed ? - There's your answer !

The rich will own more land and houses and apartments, as a means to greater fleece the masses

True story: Across the UK as a whole, the average house price, adjusted for inflation, is only about 10% more than in 2005. The problem is not house prices. The main issue is productivity and wages not keeping up. The cause for that is the same as for the massive demand for housing. 1m reasons a year can't be wrong.

Basically, Hong Kong.

In 10 years (hell, make it 2) all rental properties will be HMOs. Landlords realising they can quintuple their earning by putting up flimsy dividing walls into terraced houses has been making big moves where I am.

Honestly, I'm envisaging the Land of the Dead. Sprawling homeless camps where people hopelessly attempt to survive, the only differences is that in our case it's not zombies that will be stealing lives it will be AI and there will likely be more billionaires created through cynical trading throughout the entirety of said economic disaster.

(Neutral question:) Is the assumption that house prices will rise following an interest rate drop correct? I get the logic but I saw a guy on social media stating that historically this has not happened. I haven’t seen the data myself so hoping someone can enlighten me.

A lot of sociological points being made, in my opinion, given that only c30-35% of households have mortgages and likely to decrease and boomer inheritance over the next c20 years, amongst continued low supply and inability to keep up with demand, will see both 1. Asset prices to continue to increase and 2. Rents to continue to increase

To point out the obvious, if nothing changes, it’ll look exactly the same

Ten years time if nothing changes the landlords will all be banks and not owned by individuals at all at least for the majority If you follow the news banks are steady buying a lot of hosuing stock purposely to rent out due to the gains

We need to have a policy of 'houses are for living in' approach. Ban corporate ownership Heavily discourage 2nd home ownership. You need to be licensed to be a landlord. Which has to be renewed regularly and can be withdrawn for being sh*t Tax profit on house sales so people don't think they are a pension Get rid of stamp duty to promote mobilty replaced it with an annual property tax . I say this as someone with a house who would lose a ton of cash if the above happened. I would gladly sign up for this.

Wall to wall social media landlords

People will be more fucked on housing cost whilst those with multiple houses will continue to obtain passive income

People are still buying houses, the problem is a house is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it, and people are willing and apparently able to pay a lot

If nothing changes? Exactly the same I suppose.

In the mid 60’s in NI a farm of 80acres with a modern 2 story house, with electric underfloor heating and outbuildings sold for £60K. A farm on the other side of the road of 23 acres with a bungalow and outbuildings was sold in 2021 for £450K to give comparison, in 1979 my Dad bought a brand new Vauxhall Cavilier MKI 2.0GL family saloon for £1500

It would become the norm to build cheap, prefabricated homes on land without planning. Sorta like 'posh' slums. This is basically what's happening in Canada now. At a certain point the law is no longer in the interests of the people and the people can and will nullify it.

Either the market has to crash or no one will be able to afford a home.

It looks bleak for home buyers, investors & renters. All tree are getting shafted by government policy. Still some opportunities, if you’re willing to relocate.

A lot more medium density housing. London has a relatively low population density, and the only feasible transition is that people start accepting living in low rise flats permanently, as is already common in other European cities

Lots of poverty, crime and lack of personal space. All guaranteed under a system that allows and prioritises people with access to more funds over needs. But it’s fine as the people with the money will continue to keep the status quo. They will just tell the rest of us to stop watching Netflix and buying our daily coffee. Or something like that.

We are in a financial crisis and there's not really an easy way out. They did quantitative easing after 2008 and that kicked the can down the road, and now we have record debt and inflation. If nothing was to change, I'd imagine the interest rates staying high, and perhaps raising, drawing smaller buy to let landlords into the struggle. It's not like they can just put the rents up if workers are already struggling to make ends meet. So i think one effect would be a bigger monopolisation of the housing market, fewer and much bigger landlords, landlord corporations. That being said, people are already fed up, and it's reaching a point where the quantity of cost of living issues could turn into a qualitative change in people's consciousness - we could start to see a bigger fight back against higher rents and landlords, maybe even rent strikes.

Corporate landlords are being a big thing in the US and I am sure that storm is heading this way too. There is so much hate for private landlords however if your landlord is Lloyds bank or John Lewis, I think people will not only pay up to 50% of their take home pay on rent, they will be do it smiling. I remember a time when 25% of your take home was the recommended spend on housing, allowing you to spend money and save. Now its becoming normalised to spend up to 50% of your take home pay (in the South and London) just on accommodation. That's definitely a trend Ive noticed over the last 20yrs - the slow creep of a higher proportion of your take home being spent on accommodation. That will have a devastating effect on the wider economy as the money that went into retail and leisure will ned up in the hands of corporate and private landlords.