What Are The Fundamental Reasons Behind The UK Populations’ Never-Ending Desire To Be An Owner Of Property?
September 4, 2010
Like many other people in the UK as a whole my ears perk up when I hear that the Halifax, Nationwide or the Institute of Surveyors has made a prediction or a statement vis a vis the UK housing market. Always the same old emotions go through my mind. “Should I Sell My House? Should I buy another house? Should I attempt to get a place to rent out to youngsters as my neighbour does exactly this and he’s worth a bob or two ?”
It’s fair enough to say that people in the UK by and large are obsessed with property. When We Buy Homes it is fair to say that we are buying into more than than just the bricks and blocks that they are built with. No, We Buy Houses as part of an escalating popular trend for nest feathering which means that massive sums of our disposable income are spent on the house, flat, garden – in fact anything that is to do with property ! It honestly has become a lifestyle wherein we work to support the house, rather than seeing one’s property as merely a dwelling. The spiralling growth of the DIY sector has , in my humble opinion, been due to a bit more than the desire to save money on time-served workmen and artisans.
No, We Buy Homes now as an all consuming hobby, a means of entertainment. If you like, we are all playing a game, but one where proper cash is spent and the commitment is overwhelming as when We Buy Houses it’s a type of Monopoly but in the real world. The DIY store has evolved from a scruffy counter store at which people could buy nails to nail things together, screws to screw things together and pieces of tube to connect things together.
What a change today. A trip to any out of town DIY superstore is just about a trip to a material world wonderland with advertising and lighting displays tempting us to spend our money on credit to make our homes resemble the stunning traditional and revolutionary displays that we see as we amble gently around the store. It has to be noticed that whilst we are doing this, often of an evening after stopping off from work at the office , we are not in point of fact spending any time at home which probably has real world issues in it such as mess , unfinished DIY projects and dirty washing !
No, my feeling is that the UK public have more than just simple shelter in mind when We Buy Homes. It’s back to the old days of keeping up with the Joneses in that if your largest purchase, usually your house, is bigger, better and more well fitted out than your seeming rivals then you are in a way a better, more socially upwardly mobile person and for us in the UK property ownership is the pole that we pin our hopes on as far as social status goes.
Rarely if at all do we hear the words “I’m going to Sell My House and buy a nice tent to live in” . Or even “I’ll Sell My House and rent for the rest of my days and use the equity to subsidise my monthly rent”.
I believe that it’s all down to snobbery. In many other countries home ownership is not a social climber as it is in the UK and my contention here is that , at least in part , this is due to a history of social hierarchy that dates back to mediaeval times , but seems to have permeated our culture to the extent that it’s unthinkable to distinguish between status and property ownership.
Looks like British snobbery still runs in our veins !
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