Why worry about house prices & homeownership? - YouTube

In the last two decades, both house prices and private home ownership have grown dramatically

across Europe, transforming the role and meaning of ‘home’.

Although ratios vary, in 2015, over 71% of Europeans were homeowners, most with little

or no mortgage.

For many, having most of their financial equity in their home has increased feelings of security.

However, the intensified commodification of the home has undermined access to housing,

enhanced debt and stimulated new patterns of inequality and financial instability.

Our study of family and property wealth, HOUWEL, looks at the changing role of housing and

homeownership in different European contexts and its increasing centrality in investment,

security and welfare strategies.

While we have recently experienced a period of widespread growth in homeownership, becoming

an owner-occupier has actually become more difficult, especially for younger people.

Firstly, job conditions have gradually deteriorated with the proportion of well-paid, stable jobs

necessary for home purchase dwindling.

Temporary or part-time jobs have also become more common among young people.

Before the financial crisis, easy access to mortgage credit, allowed many people to buy

their homes, despite diminishing labour security.

However, the crash of 2008, put an end to easy credit - a root cause of the crisis.

Added to this has been inconsistent state support, growing austerity, and uneven house

price recovery.

OUR research has revealed stark reductions in access to homeownership across many European

countries, especially among younger cohorts.

Increasingly, the number of young people who have to stay on or return to the parental

home has grown dramatically.

In many contexts, large increases in young people renting has supported the idea of a

‘Generation Rent’.

The flipside of ‘generation rent’ has been a growth in the number and wealth of

landlords, people who not only own their own home but also someone else’s.

The HOUWEL research has revealed recent breakdowns in traditional housing ladders for many Europeans

as well as growing socioeconomic inequalities.

On the one hand, the gap between generations has widened, as both job prospects and homeownership

access for young people have been undermined compared to those of their parents.

On the other, within younger cohorts the gap between those that have access to resources

to enter the housing market and those that don’t has also grown.

Increasingly, whether or not your parents are able to support you in buying a home determines

your chances on the housing market.

In the UK, for example, nearly 75% of people aged 25-29 who entered homeownership in 2013

had parental support.

This is up from only 25% in 2005.

Similar increases in generational interdependence have also been seen in countries like Ireland,

Italy and Spain, for example, where family help was already well embedded in housing

practices.

Indeed, even in countries associated with generational independence, like the Netherlands

and Denmark, parental support has become an integral part of mortgage practices and central

to homeownership access.

But what does this increased interdependence between generations mean?

How do people understand giving and receiving support?

In our study we examined five European country case studies to answer these questions The

key seems to be in the value placed on autonomy.

North European countries, like the UK and the Netherlands actively nurture the autonomy

of young adults.

Financial support is relatively small and comes as a reward for personal efforts.

In countries like Italy or Romania, meanwhile, relationships are more clearly dependent.

Material support keeps children close, and even while some young people may feel trapped

in the ‘gilded cage’ of a new home provided by their family, others perceive support as

something they are entitled to.

Diverging meanings of homeownership also influence relationships between generations.

While most Europeans prefer owning to renting, homeownership is valued differently across

Europe.

While a Dutch or a British person may see buying a house as a rite of passage and lifetime

mortgage payments as quite normal, a Romanian or an Italian might not see this as a desirable

scenario and thus avoid it unless no other option exists.

So, while the investment and asset value of the house is paramount to a typical British

homeowner, a Romanian may focus more on the value of housing as secure shelter, and property

to pass on from one generation to another.

So far government responses to shifting housing and economic conditions have largely failed

to grasp the centrality of home ownership and dependency on it for meeting a variety

of needs as well as growing inequalities between and within generations.

Our findings have, therefore, important policy implications and reveal the growing importance

of housing wealth to family relations, economic security and welfare conditions across Europe.