Parents’ and grandparents’ other worry is that Generation X/Y or Z won’t be able to get on ‘the housing ladder’. Thing is, many already see it as ‘the housing treadmill’ and are increasingly happy with the freedom, as they see it, of renting. This, I think, is a building (get it?) trend, and we’ll see fewer, amateur, buy-to-let landlords chancing their arms, and more big, well-organised, properly–regulated companies (John Lewis, for instance) and social housers changing both aspirations and our house-price obsession. And very welcome that will be. I’d say.
“John Lewis foray into BTR could result in losses of £57m”
I did predict a while ago that Waitrose Homes rather than Waitrose Home Deliveries could be the future. John Lewis were probably the most benign big business to decide to go into the housing rental market, a move which could swing things away from the unpredictability of the mass of private landlords who dominate the sector.
