Comment on The end of landlords: the surprisingly simple solution to the UK housing crisis
fireweed@lemmy.world 7 months ago
One giant oversight by the article: changes in household size.
In the United States one reason why supply-demand is all fucky right now is that household sizes are smaller than ever. Singles, couples, and empty nesters comprise more of the population than ever before, and they’re frequently living in housing that previously would have accommodated a family of four or more. So even if the housing supply and population stay constant, if fewer people are living in each housing unit you’ll get a shortage. Yet nowhere in the article’s numerical analysis is there mention of this phenomenon. Given the demographic similarities between the US and UK I’m assuming household sizes are shrinking there too.
This is not to say that landlords aren’t a problem, but the entire premise of the article is that based on population and housing supply trends the supply “crisis” does not exist, which without incorporating changes in household size into their calculations is simply not a conclusion you can make.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 7 months ago
Where are you getting this? To me it looks like household size dropped precipitously between 1947 and 1990, and then stabilized around 2.6 in 1990, and now it's around 2.5. I think rent has increased a little more than that 3.9% since 1990 though.
fireweed@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You’re correct, I’ve amended my comment accordingly (I had mixed up demographic trends in California with national tends). However given that the article spends a lot of time comparing now and the 1970s, when there was a statistically significant difference in household size in the US, I feel that my point still stands, that we should know if there has also been a similar decrease in household size in the UK over the last half-century.