Resolution Foundation publishes Housing Outlook
Tuesday 7th of February 2023
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Last week, Resolution Foundation published their Housing Outlook, which examines findings from our latest survey of over 10,000 adults on the effects of the cost of living crisis, and its implications for their ability to cope with their housing costs.
Over the past year, we have seen some of the most challenging conditions for living standards on record. Not only has the price of essentials such as food and fuel soared, but on top of this many households have also faced significant increases in their housing costs – either due to rising rents or increased mortgage payments linked to higher interest rates. In this first Housing Outlook of 2023, we examine how the cost of living crisis is impacting on working-age individuals’ ability to cope with their housing costs.
Drawing on our recent YouGov survey of 10,470 adults in the UK, we find that housing stress is being felt much more widely than during the height of Covid-19. Although the effects of the cost of living crisis are broad-based, they are particularly unequal across tenures. Mortgagors are feeling the effects of higher interest rates, but private and social renters are much more likely to report falling behind or struggling with their housing costs than those buying their own home. Moreover, worryingly high numbers of private and social renters report signs of material deprivation and are resorting to sometimes unsustainable strategies to manage their housing costs.
Government support for those struggling with housing costs today is more limited than during the pandemic. Although the levels of forbearance we saw in response to Covid-19 may not be appropriate today, there is still much that policy could do to ease housing stress. For example, private rents have surged in recent years while local housing allowance (LHA) rates have been frozen, suggesting a rebase is urgently required. Likewise, now is the time to make good on the promise of a pre-action protocol for private renters to ensure that tenants and landlords mediate where renters fall into arrears.