The number of under-40s, in particular, renting without apparent hope of buying has risen by over 20% in the last 15 years or so, more than has been the case in other countries whom we would consider comparable with us: in the US, around 6%, Germany 8%, for example. The problem is that, as rents increase, buying, especially for those without Bank of Mum and Dad assistance, becomes a still-more-distant dream. Incomes have not and are not rising at anything like the same rate, and a house which, in the good old days (pick your own) would have cost 3 x an average income for mortgage purposes is now more than 10x. Scary, and unlikely to be solved by any fancy help-to-first-time-buy incentive schemes which tend to push prices up still further. Perhaps all need to accept the new reality, that more renting is the future; and try to make it work better for all concerned.
“Should you fix your mortgage forever?”
In the US (and, randomly, Denmark) it’s the norm to fix-rate your mortgage for the life of your mortgage. For us and most others, it’s now usual to fix your mortgage rate, but only for a couple or five years at most.
