The Guardian view on tenants and landlords: private renters need more rights | Editorial
The rise in property prices in the UK between 1970 and 2013 was unmatched in any other rich country. The housing policies pursued by successive UK governments in a rapidly globalising world have made millionaires of hundreds of thousands of families who still consider themselves to be middle-class, middle-income people, in defiance of the evidence of their assets.
For those not lucky enough to have secured a foothold on the property ladder before prices began their vertiginous ascent, the effect has been quite different. As is widely understood by the public as well as politicians, millions of people who might once have aspired to become homeowners now recognise that this is likely to take them much longer than it took people in previous generations, if it happens at all. Prices in the south-east but also in other parts of the country have, at many multiples of average incomes, moved beyond the reach of anyone who does not have a cash deposit of tens of thousands of pounds. The property ladder has been kicked away.
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