The Resolution Foundation is a British think tank which focuses its work on the living standards of those on low to middle income. High housing costs mean that those Britons on low to middle incomes are – we may have mentioned this before – stuffed. And so, the Resolution Foundation has been wiling away some happy hours this morning, tweeting out some of the most depressing graphs you have ever seen in your life.
Here’s what we they told us.
House prices are increasing at five times the rate of wages
This, for those who have just joined us, means a mass transfer of money out of the pockets of those who don’t own houses, into the pockets of those who do.
House prices have risen five times faster than wages in the last five years pic.twitter.com/dl1ureGlv8
— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) May 17, 2016
Content from our partners
But this is largely a London problem
Honestly, look at the state of this:
House prices have risen over five times faster than wages in the last five years, though regional picture varies pic.twitter.com/GasMeX4fsm
— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) May 17, 2016
The South East is largely London commuter territory. So is a large chunk of the East England, and so are parts of the South West (Swindon and so forth).
So it’s probably not a coincidence that the more London-y a region is, the bigger the jump in house prices.
In London, wages have actually fallen…
But have house prices fallen too? Have they hell.
In London as average weekly earnings dip below April 2011 levels, house prices increase by 57% pic.twitter.com/HZhgkRjuRv
— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) May 17, 2016
…though even in distant regions, house prices are still increasing much faster than earnings.
Look at Scotland:
Modest house price growth in Scotland over the last 5 years was still roughly double the pace of avg earnings growth pic.twitter.com/ttp65BrEge
— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) May 17, 2016
So while London is distorting the national picture, it’s probably not true to say that there’s no housing crisis outside it.
Owner occupation figures are in freefall
Can’t imagine why. But the result is that more households stuck in the private rental sector.
Impact of rising #houseprices on tenure among low-to-middle income households. % of private renters doubled since 97 pic.twitter.com/IcXwfWgAIw
— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) May 17, 2016
The people most affected are the young
Which is basically where we came in.
The housing picture for low-to-middle income millennials (aged under 35) – more than twice as likely to rent as own pic.twitter.com/TBHwbbdsed
— ResolutionFoundation (@resfoundation) May 17, 2016
Anyway, I’m sure all this is fine because the government will be along with its mass building programme to fix all this any day now.
(Spoilers: it won’t.)
Jonn Elledge is the editor of CityMetric. He is on Twitter, far too much, as @jonnelledge.
Want more of this stuff? Follow CityMetric on Twitter or Facebook.
