The Lead: Housing rethink

Toxic assets: Housing association homes and shared ownership

Hannah Fearn — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 08:01:00 GMT

Five years ago postman Robert Carver, 36, thought he was making the best investment in his future possible: getting his first step on the property ladder. He bought a 40 per cent share of a new-build flat in Chichester through a large housing association and believed that he was setting himself up for life.

But in your early thirties life moves fast. By …

Ignore the 'market mayhem', a lifeline for renters is being activated

Zoe Grunewald — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 19:44:38 GMT

Housing - both the idea of owning your own or renting one - has become increasingly expensive Pic: Roger Bamber/Alamy

This evening, Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill will reach the crucial milestone of the third reading in the Commons, before heading to the House of Lords.

The bill represents a transformative shift in the private rented sector—a system that h…

Repairing housing is key to Britain’s economic recovery

Hannah Fearn — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 14:49:09 GMT

The perilous state of the UK housing market is an excellent example of the “housing theory of everything”. This nerdy idea, coined by economist Thomas Piketty, claims that housing underpins everything in a functioning economy and that if you fix the housing problem first, everything else – from wage growth to productivity, from tax take to children’s av…