Housing Market News And Views Is The House Price Crash Our Fault?

Date Published:

08/09/2008

Is the property market in trouble because the greed and recklessness of lenders, is it all our own fault, or is our desire to own our homes about something much more fundamental?

By Lucy Searle

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In the UK, the property market continues to struggle. In the US the government has bailed out mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. But forget about lenders’ greed and misdeeds for a moment - there’s been a lot in the press recently about how our ‘obsession’ with owning property has been one of the factors driving house prices up. There’s also been mention that other nations aren’t nearly so intent on owning their own homes, and are happy to rent, the insinuation being that were we not all so greedy, we wouldn’t find ourselves in the mess that we’re in.

If I look back at my family tree, which is working class, I’d say that the majority of my ancestors rented, my grandmother most recently. However, in the early1980s, she was given the right to buy her council house, which she did. She then sold it at a profit and, at the age of about 70, bought her first home. My parents rented until after I was born, at which point they bought their first (tiny) home. We moved four times when I was young, each time to a bigger house, each time riding the rise in house prices to increase their equity.

My mum kindly helped me out with what would now be a meagre sum for a deposit on my first flat in the early 1990s. I’ve been one of the lucky ones to make the most of the property boom that the UK has seen since then. If I had to start out now, I’d barely be able to afford a one bedroom flat in the part of London I live in, which is more down at heel than it is upmarket.

However, I do have a whacking great big mortgage, a huge council tax bill, giant fuel bills, repairs and maintenance to pay for and the responsibility of keeping it all going to contend with. So why do any of us do it, considering 8 out of ten of us are apparently worried about paying the mortgage? When I bought my first home, there was no Location, Location, Location or Kirstie And Phil’s Property Guide on tv to advise me. No Property Ladder to make me realise that this was the key to a potential fortune. Not even a 4Homes website (or any websites, for that matter) that I could get access to for advice, help or, most importantly, prediction.

I did it, I imagine, for the same reasons that everyone else wants to own a property. I was fed up with living in other people’s grotty flats when, for the same monthly outlay I could live in my own grotty flat. I’d had enough of paying rent to landlords who didn’t phone a plumber as quickly as I could have done when there were plumbing problems, but through whom I had to pass every request because they were paying the bills. I’d had my fill of sleeping in a bedroom surrounded by other people’s old furniture and four walls I couldn’t paint and decorate. I no longer liked the idea of settling in somewhere, only to find a few months later that the landlord was selling the house from under me.

I wanted to be in charge of my own home and my own destiny. Property to me – and to many still isn’t – about making money. That’s just a by-product. We’ve bought because we could, and if we could make some money on the way too, that’s just a very big bonus. The trouble is, the money-making part has become the obsession, when really what it all should be about is self-empowerment.

I find the whole subject of why we are driven to owning our own homes fascinating, which is why I’m going to love The Price Of Property, on tv tonight. It looks into how owning property has changed the face of Britain, and there are some fascinating case studies. Whether you own, rent or couldn’t care less, I’d tune in – it will make for unmissable tv.

What Do You Think?

Have we been blind to our own greed or is owning our own homes a fundamental need? Let us know...

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