In one sense, the statistic should be no surprise. Such is the gap between housing supply and demand, an increase in the proportion of households using the private rented sector was almost inevitable. Nevertheless, a jump from five per cent to 14 per cent between 1999 and 2014 is startling.
It marks exactly the kind of social change the Scottish Household Survey was designed to capture. A 175 per cent increase in private renting, matched by a parallel fall in the social rented sector between the turn of the century and 2007, charts a profound shift in habits, expectations, and prices. A six per cent fall in owner-occupation since 2005 confirms a trend: in Scotland, the “property-owning democracy” is in retreat.
Elsewhere in Europe, the phenomenon would attract little comment. In Germany, France or Italy it might even be regarded as an overdue corrective to the strange British obsession with ownership. In some quarters abroad our traditional reliance on municipal or social housing would also be deemed unhealthy. What's wrong, a European might ask, with private renting?
In perfect theory, nothing at all. It could be seen as liberation from the lifelong burden of mortgage debt. It could be depicted, reasonably, as aiding social and labour flexibility, enhancing life chances for families and individuals alike as they followed opportunities wherever they led. But – and it's a large but – much of the theory depends on housing supply. Availability dictates prices; in the end, prices dictate choices.
With tenants paying an average of £549 a month, and with Shelter Scotland estimating that more than 500,000 people are in bad housing or are homeless, private renting is clearly a less than perfect solution to a crisis. In addition to those in desperate need there are the multitudes of young people who can no longer take home ownership or social housing for granted. Many cannot – thanks to rents and lenders' demands – raise a deposit; many others are stuck on waiting lists for houses that are simply not being built.
Governments worry, as they should, about the cost of all of this in terms of housing benefit. The social cost is higher still. There are obvious reasons, after all, why decent housing is often defined as a human right. Its importance to children, in particular, should be self-evident. But when the sheer cost of renting is pushing families to the margins of society we need to think seriously about policy, or risk a return – if we have not already returned – to some very bad old days.
There is clearly a place for private renting, both in general and personal terms. Europeans meanwhile have a point about our ownership fetish. But with rents continuing to outstrip inflation, with 160,000 households on social housing waiting lists, and with building falling far short of demand, “the market” is failing to solve the problem.
No one says that efforts are not being made, but all agree that a significantly higher number of houses need to be built. Moreover, those houses need to be built soon if a cycle of shortages is to be broken. Shelter Scotland says that 10,000 new social homes will need to be built every year “for the foreseeable future”. A tall order illustrates the scale of the problem.
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