No. Back in 1991 there were just over 3.0% more houses than there were households in the UK according to government data. Today, using the ONS’s latest household estimates, there appear to be 5.2% more places to live than there are households that want to live in them. In fact growth in the stock of dwellings appears to have outstripped that of households over the past 50 years or so. This is a strange sort of ‘endemic shortage’.
He shows this graph, showing that households (blue line) have repeatedly undershot expectations (red and green line)
A household is one person living alone, or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address who share cooking facilities and share a living room, sitting room or dining area. A household can consist of more than one family, or no families in the case of a group of unrelated people.
Higher housing costs mean fewer households. Children live with their parents for longer. Graduates move into HMOs because they can’t afford a one-bedroom flat. Households growing at a slower rate than dwellings doesn’t mean there isn’t a supply constraint; it can often mean the opposite.
If I wanted to prove your point, the test would be whether the number of dwellings grew faster than the number of people, not the number of households.
There isn’t a housing shortage. There are more houses than there are households.
This from Ian Mulheirn:
He shows this graph, showing that households (blue line) have repeatedly undershot expectations (red and green line)
The ONS’s definition of household:
Higher housing costs mean fewer households. Children live with their parents for longer. Graduates move into HMOs because they can’t afford a one-bedroom flat. Households growing at a slower rate than dwellings doesn’t mean there isn’t a supply constraint; it can often mean the opposite.
If I wanted to prove your point, the test would be whether the number of dwellings grew faster than the number of people, not the number of households.