The UK Housing ‚ÄòCrisis’: Are You Profiting From It?
A blog from guest writer Zeph Auerbach asks – how much personal responsibility do we have for the housing crisis?
Now that the election is over, and Eurovision is a distant memory, London turns back to its favourite moan: the housing crisis. I frequently share this moan with my mixed group of friends: some renters, some homeowners, some letting out the odd room or flat. This conversation always seems to have an ‘in it together’ atmosphere, as we berate the property speculators, the oligarchs with vacant mansions, and most of all our government, which clearly sees its role as sustaining the rise in house prices (Help to Buy, pension reforms, reductions in stamp duty and so on).
But we ignore the elephant in the over-valued and under-sized room. This is an elephant which you’d see, if you looked hard enough, lurking in the corner of almost every Independent or Guardian article decrying the housing crisis. The elephant in the room is simply this: we find ourselves on opposing sides of this ‚Äòcrisis’ and for some of us this ‚Äòcrisis’ is something we profit from and sustain.
Renters left behind by attempts to fix the housing crisis
Serial renter and Splittable contributor Tom Bowers explains what motivated him to make renting better.
I am, among many things, a member of generation rent. With my A levels burning a hole in my back pocket I took the logical step out of my family home on the outskirts of Liverpool and took up residence at university. I moved into a three-storey halls of residence, which was heated by a gas oil burner that made all of my belongings smell of paraffin. “All your clothes stink”, my mum would say whenever I came home, “even your laptop smells”. I took no notice; all I could smell was freedom.