Kirstie Allsopp, of Location Location Location fame, has claimed that more young people could afford to buy houses in Britain if they simply made more sacrifices—like their morning coffee, going to the gym, EasyJet flights and Netflix.
‘When I bought my first property, going abroad, the easyJet, coffee, gym, Netflix lifestyle didn’t exist,’ she told The Sunday Times{
Allsopp bought her first home with financial help from her family 29 years ago when the average house price in the UK was £51,000. At the time of writing, the average house price in the UK stands at £255,556. And with the cost of living crisis leaving 4.7million Britons struggling to eat, it’s unsurprising that her comments have been labelled as tone deaf.
If a first-time buyer gave up a Starbucks latte every weekday, a standard Netflix subscription, gym membership and two return EasyJet flights to a European destination every year, they would save approximately £1,600 annually, the ST calculated. This means it would still take them 37 years to save the average first-time buyer house deposit, which according to Halifax is £59,000.
And even with a deposit, securing a mortgage that is high enough to buy your own home is difficult. While property prices have soared, salaries haven’t. According to research by The Independent{
‘When I looked to buy initially, I was always told “your income isn’t high enough”,’ wrote one user on Twitter. ‘Yet my rent was costing twice as much pcm [per calendar month] as the mortgage payments would have been and had always paid my rent on time. Yet that isn’t considered when you try and buy.’
As well as giving up life’s small luxuries like your coffee and TV shows, Allsopp recommended first time buyers move to a cheaper area of the country. ‘It’s about where you can buy, not if you can buy,' she said. ‘I’m up in Nottingham right now and there’s a nice three-bedroom home with a long garden on for £320,000.
‘I get enraged when people say they can’t afford to buy. They can,’ she claimed. ‘But they have to move, which is hard if you don’t have roots there. I know there are many who can’t afford to buy, but others are not willing to make sacrifices.’
Which shows another thing Allsopp isn’t considering is the cost of childcare in Britain, which is catastrophic (currently 35% of the average family’s income) and many people choose to stay living near to their family to make costs more manageable.
As well as leaving your support network behind to move to a cheaper area, Allsopp told first time buyers to question whether a university degree was valuable. ‘I do think you have to ask yourself what your degree is giving you,’ she said.
‘Could you get a job at 18, stay at home with [your] parents for three years, and save every single penny, enough for a deposit? I’ve seen people do it. They make enormous sacrifices. It’s not impossible for everybody,’ she said.
But even if this were possible, should first time buyers have to forgo higher education and living near to their family to be able to afford housing that a few decades ago wasn’t anywhere near this unattainable? Affordable housing needs to be prioritised, and that’s where the focus of debate should be.
The Honourable Kirstie Allsopp is daughter to the 6th Baron Hindlip, she was privately educated at Bedales School, and was estimated in 2018 to have a net worth of around £16 million. While privilege doesn’t automatically equal lack of empathy, there is something uncomfortable about a person from this fortunate kind of a background expressing their rage at those less blessed for not being able to buy a property in one of the most unwelcoming housing markets of all time.
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