26% of Oakham Residents Rent - Is that Healthy?

In the 1960’and 1970’s, ‘Renting’ used to be a dirty word. As a tenant you either lived in a ‘Rigsby Rising Damp’ style bedsit with wood chip on the wall and a coin operated electric meter, or you lived in a council house. 

 

In the latter part of the 20^th Century, the British were persuaded that rent payments were ‘wasted money’.

However, as we roll the clock forward to today, owning often makes less financial sense than renting and as the rate of homeownership is starting to drop substantially, there is no stigma at all to renting. 

In actual fact, of the 10,432 residents in Oakham, 2,706 of you rent your house from either the local authority/social provider or rent from private landlords – meaning 25.93% of Oakham residents are tenants.

The idea of homeownership is deeply embedded in the British soul, with 7,432 Oakham residents as ‘owner occupiers’ (or 71.24%). Housing is at the heart of Government policy, as George Osborne has promised 200,000 new properties a year so first time buyers can buy their first home, whilst recently changing the tax laws for buy-to-let landlords. To get votes, Thatcher (and everyone since) ran election campaigns promising everybody their own home, and as a country, we seem to equate homeownership to achieving one of life’s goals.

So, as more and more people are renting nowadays, are we turning to a more European way of living? Well, I believe as a country, we are. In fact, 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 and homeownership is at 52.5% and 44% respectively in those countries (in the UK it is 64.8%).

In the Rutland County Council area, 76.91% of homeowners who own their house outright said they were in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health whilst, at the other end of the scale, 4.5% said their health was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’.

Looking at renting, the Census splits tenants into two types – 70.5% of Rutland local authority/social tenants said they were in ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health and 8.49% were in ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health.  Meanwhile ‘private rented tenants’ in Rutland are considered the healthiest with 88.12% describing themselves as having either ‘very good’ or ‘good’ health, and only 2.67% were in ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ health.

I am not suggesting that low homeownership rates in Switzerland and Germany are directly linked to health, nor do I expect Brits to rush off to those countries to realise how happy people are when they don't need to worry about all the stresses which accompany homeownership.

The numbers for Rutland do go some way to back up the argument (and they are the same across the whole of the UK). Nonetheless, I do think that substantially all of the upsides to homeownership in recent years has been a function of monumental rising house prices. Now that's come to an end, it's hard to see why anybody would want to buy their home.

Renting is here to stay 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 town. There has never been a better time to purchase an investment property, but buy wisely.

Gone are the days that you would make profit on anything with four walls and a roof. Take advice, take opinion, do your homework.  One place to do more homework, to read more articles on the Oakham Property market like this, is the Oakham Property Blog: www.rutlandandstamfordpropertyblog.co.uk

 

Data: Renting numbers and health numbers taken from the Census.  Data excludes ‘rent free properties, tied properties & caravans’, excludes category for people considered to be in ‘fair health’.