Why Brits Are So Obsessed With Owning Houses
And what it means for Gen Z & Zillennials
Like most kids in Britain, I grew up believing that owning a home was the end goal. It felt less like an ambition and more of a given, like in the movies: you just buy a house, have kids and live happily ever after. Simple. I had similar expectations of driving, assuming it was a skill that would simply appear in adulthood fully formed, like a superpower. It did not. It took me six years to pass my test.
I didn’t think too hard about how the whole house thing would actually happen until recent years. Though that extended as far as adding a picture of a house, and someone holding a pair of keys, to my vision board. I was too preoccupied with my immediate ambitions.
However, this week alone I’ve had not one, not two, but three separate conversations about whether my generation will be able to get on the property ladder at all. Combined with the fact that I’m nearing thirty, and over the past six months my Instagram feed has been inundated with people getting engaged and buying houses; it was perhaps inevitable that I found myself lying awake this morning, unable to fall back asleep, thinking about the housing market. This is not, typically, what I lie in bed thinking about. And so I took to Google.
Home Ownership in Britain
I went far enough down the rabbit hole to discover that our obsession with home ownership has been baked into British culture for centuries. You might have heard the phrase ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle.’ It dates back to a 1604 legal ruling known as Semayne’s Case, by which your home was your refuge; protecting you from unauthorized intrusion, and even from the King’s officers in many cases. Ownership, in that sense, became the strongest form of security you could have.
In the 20th century that belief was given political weight. In her first speech as Conservative leader to the Party Conference (1975), Margaret Thatcher invoked the vision of a ‘property-owning democracy.’ The idea being that it would give ordinary families security and independence, with a stake in the country’s success.
Practical matters come into play too. Historically, the UK’s private rental sector has been less regulated than much of Europe, with shorter tenancies and fewer protections. And so buying was seen as the safer option.
Even the language around home ownership is loaded. We don’t just buy a house, we ‘get on the property ladder’ and ‘put down roots.’ The phrases themselves imply progress and stability. It’s in our idioms too. ‘Safe as houses’ is a phrase that dates back to Victorian England, when property was considered a safer bet than railway stocks.
Renting vs Buying (Neither is Great)
Before educating myself on both sides of the debate, I was firmly in the camp that renting was akin to ‘throwing money down the drain.’ Despite renting myself. The logic seemed straightforward enough: buying should basically be the same as renting, except instead of paying rent every month, you’re putting money towards something you actually own. Like a physical savings account that you could live inside. Unfortunately, the reality isn’t that simple. Mortgage payments can fluctuate, interest rates can change, and those predictable monthly outgoings stop feeling, well, predictable.
Renting offers flexibility, at the cost of security. Buying offers security, at the cost of flexibility. When you peel back the layers, neither choice seems that appealing. So it’s less a question of right versus wrong, and more about the flavour of discomfort you’re most comfortable living with.
You Can’t Put a Price on Feeling, But You Can Put a Mortgage On It
Home ownership isn’t just about the house itself, it’s about everything it represents. The feeling of security, stability and success. A study of US Gen Z found that, out of 992 respondents, the number one reason for wanting to buy a home was ‘stability’ (51%), followed closely by a desire for more privacy and control over their living situation. And that sense of control is huge: you can decorate, renovate and really ‘make it your own’ without having to ask permission. Similarly, the feeling of stability is more than just a financial one. It’s the permanence of knowing your life is anchored somewhere in the world.
Then there’s success, or at least the feeling of it, because buying a house has long been positioned as one of those life milestones to hit. 90% of Gen Z say they want to own a home someday, and I’m one of them (technically I’m a Zillennial). Partly for all of those reasons, but also because I’d really like to bring my Pinterest board ‘Future House Inspo’ to life.
In the long term you have to own, because rents will just keep going up so long as there is constrained supply (which there will always be in the UK due to tight planning regulation and artificial scarcity) and net-positive migration (as in, migration which exceeds the number of people dying each year) and thus a growing population.
You can't take the risk of renting in the long term, because it takes 25-30 years to pay off a mortgage and paying a market rent in your old age will be damn near impossible. As you get older the banks become less willing to lend to you too, which stops some older people being able to get mortgages.
Then there's the security element - as you get older moving house gets harder and more expensive because you are less physically able, so unless you're willing to commit to a life of material minimalism it's likely you'll struggle with house moves more and more as you age.
You haven't really gone into this in the article, but a big part of the British obsession with home ownership is due to the financialisation of housing, for most households their home is the main store of value they own. It's not uncommon for there to be people arriving at retirement age with no other wealth beyond a house they own outright.
Then there's the risk-aversion that's prevelant in the British mentality - they are on the whole a very risk averse people, and buying housing is seen as being a safe investment that's easier for most people to understand than equity investing.
And that's before you even start talking about B2L, the banks being unwilling to lend for anything productive and preferring lending against property, which makes property one of the only ways to easily access significant leverage, BRRR, AirBNB, rent to rent and the various government schemes that artifically drive up demand by inducing people who fundamentally cannot afford to buy a house to buy a house (help to buy, co-ownership etc)
Had to hit the subscribe because bloody hell…it’s funny when you speak to people in any other European country they’re all renting. I think it’s deffo become a mark of Adulthood in some sort of way but honestly we should start thinking about success and stability in more of a holistic way outside of mortgages :)