How do we fix the housing crisis? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our writers share their experiences of the UK’s dysfunctional housing system and examine how we can fix it.
Pensioners like me have a moral responsibility to downsize for young people
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Ten years ago in April, I pulled the door shut on the home I had owned for 11 years. A large, detached house in Llandaff (what they call a “posh” bit) just outside Cardiff. I expected, if not loud blubbing, to feel a little sadness at least.
But nada. Didn’t even look back. I felt only one thing: relief.
Relief from the bank, which, following my job loss, had been hassling me non-stop to make up for some underpayments. Even in the hour leading up to the exchange of contracts (always a stressful time), they gave me until noon and, if the contracts had still not been signed, they said they would begin the repossession process. Now that was a bit that did make me cry.
My neighbour drove me to Heathrow Airport and I sat in the Virgin Upper Class lounge, sipping Champagne (I had thousands of Air Miles to pay for it – don’t judge) and cried some more. Tears of joy. I was heading to New York, where I had decided to rent an apartment.
Thirty years of mortgage payments I had been shelling out in London, Bath, Cardiff and Spain, where I had bought property at different times. Gone. Thirty years haemorrhaging thousands to pay for collapsed walls, shared boundary repairs, blocked drains, broken boilers. Gone. Thirty years of struggling to find monthly payments that escalated according to interest rate changes. Gone. Gone. Gone.
I became a renter. That’s right. One of those people constantly on the receiving end of sad looks accompanied by sighs of “It’s not the same as having your own place, though, is it?” Or: “Rent is just money down the drain.”
Well, let me tell you: from where I’m standing, that drain is an alright place to be. Because what it gives me, more than anything else, is freedom. Outside of the UK, I’ve rented in Paris, Marbella, Valencia, Los Angeles, New York (Manhattan and Upstate) and, most recently, in the truly amazing Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second largest city and, reportedly, the oldest city in Europe.
I can honestly say I’ve never felt any less secure living in a rental than a mortgaged home because until you pay it off, the lender is, effectively, your landlord. I generally go for unfurnished so I can style it to my own taste (I’ve been keeping Ikea in business the world over), and I’ve been fairly lucky with landlords. Of course, there has been the odd exception, but that’s the joy of renting: you can always move on.
And that’s what I love the most. Not only the change of place, but the change of scenery, pace of life, different people and new cultures. The joy of the new is something I relish. Finding the UK to be an increasingly insular society, I’ve welcomed the enthusiasm and positivity of people who don’t spend their every waking moment moaning about the weather and money.
Young people in particular – especially in Bulgaria – have an upbeat energy that comes not from the hope of acquiring bricks and mortar but a zest for life and a passion for the arts. Of course, people have that in the UK, too, but when was the last time you could afford a theatre ticket and a meal out? For me, it was 1985 when Les Misérables opened at the Palace Theatre in London’s West End. And I got to see the show only because I was working behind the bar. Even my meal was a bag of chips in Brewer Street.
Looking back, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to afford a theatre ticket and a meal out on the same day because, after I bought my first property in London at the age of 34, I had to watch every penny as my enormous mortgage payments gouged monstrously on my income. Even a second glass of wine became a luxury.
It was probably Paris that changed my view of renting as opposed to owning. I went there in 2001 after pondering what my one regret would be on my deathbed. Mine was that I had never lived in Paris. For 10 years, I had been living in a mortgaged house in Bath, where I had just had to pay £8,000 for a boundary wall that needed repair. The local church had expressed interest in my house, so I accepted their offer and was soon on the Eurostar to pick up the keys for my Paris rental in the glorious area of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the 6th arrondissement.
Property ownership is not a big deal in Paris – in fact, the only people I know who own anything there are Brits. Possession is just not in their mentality, not least because the price of Paris property is way beyond the means of the average wage earner. But they don’t sit around biting their nails, fantasising about the day they might become owners.
Contrast this with the UK, where house ownership is a badge of pride and a sign of upward social mobility. I hear many people proudly announce that their children are “saving for a house” and, oh, yegods, they’ve actually bought one. They express special pride in helping them financially in order to bring this momentous event about.
Home ownership and all the costs that come with it are an expensive business, especially if you live alone and don’t have a second wage coming into the home. More and more people will have to work until they drop dead, because retirement is a luxury fewer people can now afford, and many are taking out longer mortgages to make payments manageable.
With renting, I am more able to tailor my life to my finances as a freelance writer. Despite the fact that rental prices have increased considerably in the UK, the chances are you can find somewhere in a much more desirable area as a renter than you can if you buy. I’ve found the same everywhere. Where could I have afforded to buy in Paris? Some ghastly suburb in a shoebox. Certainly not the upmarket 6th. In New York, I had a penthouse (albeit a small one) in a luxury building overlooking the Hudson River – the kind of place that would cost many millions to buy.
Like many, I’ve been through various recessions and found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time as a result of circumstances beyond my control, in particular the changing financial markets – the pound going into parity with the dollar following Brexit, for example (I was paid in pounds; my outgoings were in dollars). Then we had Covid, the effects of which damaged so many businesses. I’ve also made no secret of the fact that I hold myself personally responsible for some of my money woes, too.
But renting enables me to cut my coat according to my cloth, as the saying goes. Maybe if I’d dated Simon Cowell and broken up with him, I’d have got a house. I once told him this and he said that not all his exes got one. But that, or winning the lottery, are the only things that would ever lure me back into the home ownership market.
I’ve tasted freedom and I love it. You would be surprised how much space is left inside your head when those dreaded two words – mortgage payments – are eradicated from your already exhausted brain.
There is life beyond interest rates. Trust me. I’m living it.
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