London Bangla A Force for the community…
IT SEEMS obvious: poor people don’t have the opportunities that wealthy people do when it comes to putting a roof over their heads. Now this has been confirmed by research conducted by award winning mortgage adviser Alexander Hall.
Alexander Hall’s research produced statistics to prove the case.
•Over the last eight years, average rents have risen by 34% to £1,307 a month and while earnings have increased by 35%, renters are paying around half of their net income in rent.
•The average first-time buyer pays £245,208 for a home. They would need a deposit of £36,781 to secure a mortgage: if they saved 20% of their income, it would take just over seven years to do this.
Alexander Hall goes on to point out that a young person who can live with their parents rather than rent privately could save the necessary deposit in three years.
These are national figures. In Tower Hamlets this problem is made worse by artificially high house prices and by the huge rate of overcrowding in social housing. In wealthy areas, a young person may be able to continue to occupy their childhood bedroom: a sacrifice they can put up with in order to save rather than pay rent. In urban areas, such as Tower Hamlets, a young person may have been sharing a bedroom with two or three siblings – or even a grandparent. Their income is taken into account when the authorities assess entitlement to housing benefit, so it may not be possible for the young person to live rent-free.
The Starmer Government has promised to build substantial numbers of houses, which should bring house prices down. It will have to be done carefully: when house prices fell sharply in 2008, there was a global economic crash. We could be putting tents up in Victoria Park yet!
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