The housing market is broken—but solutions exist
April 25, 2022
Angharad Paget-Jones, from Port Talbot, Wales, doesn't expect to ever get on the housing ladder. Despite what money-saving advice and guides on the internet say, "it's not as easy as stopping drinking coffee in the morning or canceling your Netflix subscription," she says. Paget-Jones, 28, needs a home of her own to live in. As someone with disabilities, she sorely needs to adapt her property to make her quality of life better, but she can't do that in the rental market.
"Owning my own home is the goal," she says. But despite working full-time, she hasn't been able to save enough to get close to putting down a deposit. The average price of homes she's been looking at is around £180,000 ($235,000). She has around £3,000 ($3,900) in savings, while her rent is £675 a month. She's able to save around £200 a month, but higher costs of living have hit her hard. "I'm saving a lot more than most people, I understand, but with everything else going up, it's not possible to save more than that while being able to heat my home and eat," she says.
Paget-Jones' situation is far from unique. House prices are 4.4 times the average disposable income in the United States—the highest level since 2006. In England and Wales, it's 8.9 times, up from 6.7 times a decade ago. Canada is considering prohibiting foreigners from buying homes in the country after the average house price rose to nine times the average household income. The housing market is broken, with more people being left behind in a never-ending cycle of rentals because they can't afford to get a foot on the housing ladder.
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