A-level
ECONOMICS
Paper 3 Economic principles and issues
Insert
DO NOT WRITE ANY ANSWERS IN THIS INSERT. YOU MUST ANSWER THE
QUESTIONS IN THE ANSWER BOOKLET PROVIDED.
The UK’s broken housing market
• Add text here
...
A-level
ECONOMICS
Paper 3 Economic principles and issues
Insert
DO NOT WRITE ANY ANSWERS IN THIS INSERT. YOU MUST ANSWER THE
QUESTIONS IN THE ANSWER BOOKLET PROVIDED.
The UK’s broken housing market
• Add text here
Questions 31 to 33
• Extract A: The UK housing market
• Extract B: Putting a roof over our heads
• Extract C: Selected indicators of the affordability of buying a house
• Extract D: Changing UK house prices
• Extract E: Mending the UK’s broken housing market
IB/M/Jun19/7136/3
Extract A: The UK housing market
The housing market is a large part of the UK economy, comprising over 28 million residential
dwellings. Buying a house is the largest investment that many people will make in their lifetime.
Most owner occupiers finance the purchase of their house by borrowing, using a mortgage
provided by a bank or building society. However, the UK housing market is changing, with
fewer people owning their own homes and more people renting from private landlords or
housing associations, but the number of dwellings rented from local authorities has fallen.
Housing associations and local authorities provide social housing at rents that are generally
below the free market level.
1 5
Source: News reports, February 2018
Extract B: Putting a roof over our heads
In 1997, the median price of a house was less than four times median earnings. Today the
median price of a house is almost eight times median earnings, an all-time record. As a result,
it is difficult to get onto the housing ladder, and the proportion of people living in the private
rented sector has doubled since 2000.
More than 2.2 million households with below-average incomes spend a third or more of their
disposable income on housing. This means they have less money to spend on other things and
struggle to save the money needed for the deposit to buy a house.
Building more homes will slow the rise in house prices and should also bring the cost of renting
down. For decades, the pace of house building has been too slow. Since the 1970s, there
have been on average 160 000 more new homes each year in England. The consensus is that
we need more than 225 000 new homes each year to keep up with population growth and to
tackle years of under-supply.
The most basic of human needs – a safe, secure home to call your own – isn’t just a distant
dream for millions of people, it’s a dream that’s moving further and further away.
1 5
10
Source: Government report, February 2017, Cm 9352
[Show More]