2024-03-25 13:02:04
Among OECD countries, the United Kingdom fares worst in terms of real estate, with expensive, small and poorly maintained housing.
Expensive, small and aging housing: the British housing stock “offers the worst value for money of all advanced economies”, says a study by the Resolution Foundation think tank. “The housing crisis in the United Kingdom has been decades in the making, with successive governments failing to build enough new housing and modernize existing stock,” summarizes Adam Corlett, economist at the Resolution Foundation, in a press release. .
The study, which is based on OECD data, compares what it would cost households if they all rented their homes. On this economic criterion alone, the British devote 22% of their spending to housing, the second highest level of the countries examined, behind Finland.
In France, 43 m² on average
At the same time, British households have, with 38 m2 per person on average, less floor space than many comparable countries, notably the United States (66 m2), Germany (46 m2), France (43 m2) or Japan (40 m2). British housing also has less floor space per person than in New York (43 m2), where apartments are nevertheless notoriously small, point out the authors of the study.
The data on which the study is based mainly dates from before the pandemic, but in the United Kingdom, tensions in the property market have only increased since then, with very high interest rates in the United Kingdom having hampered real estate transactions and slowed construction.
“The UK’s housing stock is also the oldest of all European countries, with a greater proportion of housing built before 1946 (38%) than anywhere else,” the Resolution Foundation further notes in its press release.
Homes are poorly insulated, which “leads to higher energy bills and a higher risk of damp”, all factors which contribute to putting the UK in last place for value for money in this study.
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