25% of Bexley people Rent - is that Healthy?

Renting was a dirty word in the 60s and 70s. You either lived in a “Rigsby Rising Damp” style bedsit with wood chip on the wall and a coin-operated electric meter (that buzzed in the night), or you lived in a council house. In the latter part of the 20^th century, the British believed that rent payments were “wasted money”. However, nowadays owning often makes less financial sense than renting. Everyone is doing it now, and the rate of homeownership is starting to drop substantially. The stigma that there was once is gone. In fact, of the 283,134 residents of Bexley, 71,088 of us rent from either the local authority/social provider (i.e. the council or a housing association) or private landlords. That means that 25.10% of Bexley people are tenants.

The idea of homeownership is deeply embedded in the British soul. 208,009 (73.46%). Bexley people live in an owner-occupied property. Housing is at the heart of government policy, as they have promised 200,000 new properties a year so that first time buyers can buy their first home, and recently changed the tax laws for buy-to-let landlords. Thatcher (and everyone since) has run election campaigns promising everybody their own home. As a nation, homeownership seems to be the collective British goal. As more and more people are renting, is our lifestyle becoming more European? I believe that it is.

Homeownership could be affecting your health! According to Bloomberg, the UK is only the 21^st healthiest country in the world. Germany is at no. 10 and Switzerland at no. 4, with homeownership at, respectively, 52.5% and 44% compared to 64.8% here. In the London Borough of Bexley Council area, 69.89% of homeowners said they were in “very good” or “good” health while 7.62% said their health was “bad” or “very bad”. Among renters, the census splits tenants into two groups. 73.19% of Bexley local authority/social tenants said they were in “very good” or “good” health and 9.76% were in “bad” or “very bad” health. However, “private rented tenants” were the healthiest in Bexley, as 88% of them described themselves in “very good” or “good” health and only 3.7% were in “bad” or “very bad” health.

I am not suggesting that low homeownership rates in Switzerland and Germany are directly linked to health and I don’t expect Brits to go to Berlin, Interlaken or Düsseldorf to see how happy people are without the stresses of homeownership. However, the numbers for Bexley, replicated across the UK, do seem to support that view.

For years, one of the reasons why people wanted to own their own home was because prices kept rising monumentally. Now that's come to an end, it's hard to see why anybody would want to buy. Renting is here to stay in Bexley Borough and it’s growing incrementally each year. Even with the new tax rules for landlords, buy-to-let is still a viable investment option for most people in the suburb. There has never been a better time to acquire buy-to-let property in and around our Borough, but buy wisely. Gone are the days that you would make profit on anything with four walls and a roof. Take advice, hear opinions and do your homework.

You can do more homework and read more articles on the Bexley Borough Property market on the Bexley Borough Property Blog: www.bexleyproperty.co.uk. You can also visit our office in Bexley Village next to the King’s Head Public House or give us a call on 01322 559955.