Londoners are getting desperate over rising rents, with residents and students taking to the streets and social media over the cramped conditions tenants are forced to accept.
With housebuilding lagging well behind the population increase in western Europe’s biggest city, prices are soaring beyond anything affordable.
“The situation is becoming untenable,” said retired teacher John Ford, 60, who joined a 2,000-strong protest this month against the government’s new housing bill, which would radically alter public housing and the rights of its tenants.
“My nephew is a young surgeon. He cannot afford, on his salary, to buy a house in London. So this crisis is beginning to eat into the middle class,” he said.
Buy-to-leave is dreadful. But the real issue is what’s being built: homes designed for just that
Latest figures show the average London house price was £514,097 (HK$5.8 million) in December, up 12.4 per cent in 12 months, compared to a 6.4-per cent increase to £188,270 across England and Wales.