Would building 1.5m homes bring down British house prices?
Answer: Not by much
HOMES IN Britain have become eye-wateringly expensive. When the Labour Party last won power, in 1997, the ratio of the median house price to the median income in England was 3.5. Now it is 8.3. The share of households aged under 30 who own their own home has fallen from one in five in 1997 to one in eight. On July 24th Sir Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, said that Britain’s failure to build was denying young people “the basic dream of homeownership”.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The long game”
Britain August 10th 2024
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From the August 10th 2024 edition
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