It has become increasingly apparent that housing in the UK is operated for the purpose of profit, not for purpose. It is modeled to encourage individualism and ownership, placing the notion that everyone must work towards owning their property, because this is the most secure and affordable way of living. This is largely incentivised through government policies that support first time buyers and shared ownership, not because either of these policies are enacted through a lens of nature or of community or of social value, but they are enacted through a lens that creates demand, inflates prices and drives a dependency upon a flow of money from the individual towards the private banking systems, and thereby to the shareholders.
The irony of these policies is that the government, through much of their support to public sector workers, share ownership etc are, of course, funding employments of public sector workers, who then pay the mortgage to those private banks and, the shareholders. You can almost hear the shareholders collectively rubbing their hands when the government announces they will support key workers to ‘get on the housing ladder’ and borrow from a commercial lender. Whether shared ownership or social housing (right to buy scheme) the ultimate aim is achieved, that more and more housing stock disappears onto the market, out of the control of any kind of affordability and into the scarcity driven market which has, as we see now, inflated the average house price to 7.8 times the average wage. There is no circularity here, just a blatant funneling of public money to private wealth.
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