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Research Project

The UK Housing Market - Recent and Future Trends in the Housing Market

A young woman carrying a house sale sign saying 'Sold, but for how much?'

Image: For young people and low paid workers, the price of property is proving prohibitive to their entry into the market. Copyright: Gerry McCann / Scran

We know the factors that affect the housing market and that the market is very large and fragmented. We now need to look in more detail at the recent trends in the housing market.

There are a number of important issues involved:

  • The problems faced by young people in gaining access to the housing market
  • The problems faced by low paid workers, especially in the public sector, getting housing in areas where jobs are available and often in desperate need of those workers
  • The effects of the ageing population
  • The effects of the changing social trends - the increase in single families, divorce rates and so on

In each of the above cases we can do some analysis to try to identify what is going on. Analysis means breaking complex issues and problems up into smaller, more manageable chunks, in order to try to understand what is happening.


Task 7

In each of the above points we can access data to try to offer some support to the statements made. Below is a series of hypotheses based around the four points outlined above. Your task is to use the suggested links (and any other appropriate data) to either support the hypothesis or offer an argument against it. In so doing you will be developing a range of skills including

  • Data analysis
  • Data selection
  • Synthesising information
  • Using data appropriately to support an argument

Hypothesis 1: Young people are being priced out of the housing market because incomes are simply not keeping pace with house prices.

Suggested links:

  • Tough Times for First-Time Buyers - from findaproperty.com (http://www.findaproperty.com/story.aspx?storyid=3246)
  • House price data - from Biz/ed's Key Economic Data (http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/ked/ked.pl?date_start=1&date_end=39&variables=house&variables=house_perc&display_format=both&submit=Submit)
  • Wage inflation data - from Biz/ed's Key Economic Data (http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/ked/ked.pl?date_start=1&date_end=39&variables=wage_perc&display_format=both&submit=Submit)
  • Average earnings by sector - from the Office for National Statistics (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D7937.xls)

Hypothesis 2: The argument for fixing property prices to allow so called 'essential workers' access to the housing market is not really necessary.

Suggested links:


Hypothesis 3: The trends in the population structure of the UK mean that the effects of an ageing population will not have any significant effect on the housing market in the long term.

Suggested links:


Hypothesis 4: Changing social trends are likely to have the most significant impact on the housing market and tenure patterns in the next 15 years.

Suggested links:

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