Helen Quayle turns 34 this year. She has a good job, earning £24,000 as the patient information officer at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary – but she can’t afford to buy a house. She shares a home with two other people just outside Lancaster and is desperately saving for a deposit. She can’t see her situation changing soon, either. With rent costing £430 a month, there isn’t much left over.
‘I’d really hoped I’d own a house by now, but it’s impossible to pay rent and save,’ she says. ‘I like my own space. Having my own home is everything I want.’ Helen is, sadly, far from unique. Ask Siri for pictures of ‘Generation Rent’ and you’re probably expecting pictures of fresh-faced graduates in their early twenties throwing house parties. But the housing crisis is now so serious – the charity Shelter declared it a ‘national emergency’ – that it’s not just young people being hammered by private rents, which have risen 6% faster than average pay since 2011.
Today, millions (yes, millions) of people are caught up in the rental trap, paying so much to private landlords each month - rent, on average, consumes 41% of their income – that they are unable to start saving for a deposit for their own home. Some are even putting off starting families. According to the most recent English Housing Survey, a fifth of the UK’s population now lives in privately rented accommodation. Renters are getting older too, with the number of 35-to-54-year-olds renting doubling in the last decade. But it’s not only renting that’s on the rise; the numbers of those sharing are soaring, too, because it’s cheaper than living alone. According to Spareroom.co.uk, a site that connects potential housemates, the number of people living in shared accommodation has risen by 400% in a decade. And that figure jumps to more than 600% for those between 45 and 54.
A lifestyle that was once associated with student life can extend well into your thirties – and that means the problems that come with it take on a new life, too. Helen loves her housemates, but she says that the usual houseshare gripes become more significant as you get older and busier. ‘Sharing a washing machine is actually so time-consuming,’ she notes. ‘You have to constantly think ahead, arranging basic things around others.’
Long-term, though, there’s more than the washing rota on Helen’s mind. ‘When you rent there’s so much that you can’t do. I can’t paint the walls a certain colour in case it affects my deposit, and I can’t have a pet. My 20-year-old cat has to live with my parents. It really, really upsets me. I hate it. When you’re paying to live somewhere, then it’s your home – but the law doesn’t see renters that way. It’s a constant reminder that you’re a sort of second-class citizen.’
Indeed, English renters have some of the worst protections in Europe. Short-term one-year leases are standard, rent rises are regular and a ban on pets is pretty much universal; Labour even put proposals for tenants to have a default right to pets into a draft policy document in 2018. Meanwhile, in Germany, tenants can legally stay in their rented homes indefinitely, even when a landlord sells up. Italy, Belgium and Ireland all give tenants between three and 10 years’ protection. But in Britain there’s something called Section 21 of the 1988 Housing Act, which means a landlord can evict you at any time without even having to give you a reason. Yes, you read that right!
Instability breeds anxiety. Kathryn Shaw, 32, is a PR manager living in Hackney, East London. She earns £32,000 and has two flatmates. They each pay £650 before bills. She, too, has ‘brilliant’ housemates but finds the insecurity of housesharing difficult. ‘I don’t want to sound dramatic, but my housing worries are undermining my mental health. The disparity in wealth and quality of life is so obvious between friends who own and those who rent. I feel like I’m constantly behind where I should be in life.’
Once you turn 30 you have certain expectations of how your world should look. There are milestones we’ve been told we should hit: a certain salary, marriage, buying a home and having kids. The housing crisis has completely changed our society’s landscape, but we still feel pressure to reach these markers of adulthood, and fear we’ve failed if we can’t.
‘It’s weird to invite friends who have children over when you live in a houseshare,’ Kathryn explains. ‘All it does is remind you that you’re at a different life stage to them. It’s fine to have a friend over and hang in my room if there are people in the living room, but it’s weird to do that with my nephews. The people who have kids are the ones who own houses – it’s a stark reminder that they’re more sorted than me in that way.’
Kathryn says she feels ‘much more aware’ of her situation as a renter who isn’t able to save much now that she’s in her thirties. Her biggest concern is not dirty dishes being left out, but the future. ‘I’m 32, I’ve worked full-time for 10 years but I’m nowhere near having a deposit because I spend so much on rent and don’t have parents who can help,’ she says. Like so many renters, she now feels forced to make life choices because of the cost of housing. It’s like sitting on a ticking financial time bomb. She knows that she wants children but is very aware that she couldn’t afford to raise them and pay rent. ‘I feel like I’m stuck in an internal back- and-forth monologue,’ she says. ‘I’m single now but I want a family. Do I stay in a job I love, in a city I love or leave and put down roots somewhere else? I want to feel settled. But I have to be in London for work, so when it comes down to it, I’m going to have to trade in one of my dreams.’
Generation Rent grew up watching sitcoms like Sex And The City, where successful, glamorous and, crucially, single female protagonists were able to live alone. Today, sharing is less a choice made to postpone adulthood and more the barrier to growing up because renting is so expensive. Rachel Chall is a 31-year-old medical policy officer on £38,000 a year living in Shepherd’s Bush, London. Originally from County Carlow in Ireland, she too feels trapped. ‘My rent is £790 before bills for a room and I share with six people.’ Living with six others, sharing two bathrooms and one kitchen, has lost its appeal. ‘I moved here after I broke up with my boyfriend, and I was desperate,’ she says. ‘One oven between six people isn’t enough; you constantly fight for space.’ When you have your own space it’s easily taken for granted; if you live with other people, it becomes a luxury. Once Rachel started dating again she felt crowded. ‘The first time my housemates met my boyfriend he was in his pants ironing a shirt. I don’t want to worry about that, we’re adults. I want to live my life.
‘Also, I’m set in my ways now. I’m less tolerant of messy people than I once might have been. I’m a granny at home.’ So, what does a dream night at home look like? ‘No mad parties, it’s PJs on when I get home and the odd glass of wine. I like it that way.’ Rachel thinks ‘Generation Rent’ is an unhelpful misnomer. ‘We’re in our thirties now and might be renting until our fifties. There isn’t enough being done to help people [like me] who don’t have enough money to buy but earn too much to qualify for social housing. I naively assumed I would own my own home by 30, but now I’m trapped by the cost of rent.’ Helen, Kathryn and Rachel would all love to live alone but can’t afford to, despite all being successful and in work.
They all dream of the same thing: a secure and affordable home to call their own. Space. A place where they can shut the door on the world and do whatever they want. They’re sacrificing whatever they can and making difficult decisions to get there, knowing it will take years to save enough. ‘I don’t really go out drinking, I don’t go to the cinema and I can’t remember the last time I bought a cup of coffee,’ says Rachel. ‘I go to work and come home. I work to pay rent, save what I can and hope for the best.'