The Office for National Statistics have just published the latest data for the ratio between house prices and earnings for 2017. As you can see from the tables below both the lower quartile and median property prices in Swindon have outpaced earnings by more than four times from 2010 to 2017.
The lower quartile property price at 7.87 lower quartile earnings in 2017 is even higher than the median one. If you aren’t a home owner the chances of you becoming one without assistance from the bank of mum and dad (which many people cannot call on) are increasingly vanishing, unless you are one of the higher earners.
Given the shortage of council housing this means that more and more people are forced to rent in the private sector where rents are also increasing way above earnings (see Swindon the real picture Part 2, Crisis of housing affordability).
Recently we have heard that Swindon is a housing ‘hot spot’ with a high level of activity. Increasing house prices, however, are no use to local people who do not earn enough to afford a mortgage. Increasing ratios are just another sign that the supposed ‘success’ of the town is leaving more and more people behind, struggling to get by month by month.
Lower Quartile
|
LQ earnings |
LQ house price |
LQ ratio |
|
|
2010 |
19,350 |
£120,000 |
6.20 |
|
2017 |
20,890 |
£164,500 |
7.87 |
|
% increase |
7.95% |
37.1% |
Median
|
Median earnings |
Median house price |
Median ratio |
|
|
2010 |
26,667 |
155,000 |
5.81 |
|
2017 |
28,847 |
211,500 |
7.33 |
|
% increase |
8.17% |
36.45% |
Swindon Tenants Campaign Group 
House prices continue to outpace earnings : A cursory look at these figure’s makes it abundantly clear that house buying for working people most of whom are receiving inadequate wages is totally out of the question, moreover the middle class are being impoverished by way of the bank of mum and dad, this is
taking on all of the characteristics of the poll tax, and we know how that ended
?
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