My parents purchased their first property before I was born. The price was just twice one of their salaries. Although they purchased with some friends and divided the property up, there is no way I could afford to even attempt to consider how to purchase the same place.
Where I live the average house price is 18.5 times the average salary and all this has meant is that it becomes almost impossible to buy unless you have inherited wealth. It leaves most people in a precarious situation and, of course people aspire to still own their own property, because rent is even more unaffordable!
My parents, love them, have simply been complicit in a neoliberal economic system that has laded us in so many problems that in order to put food on the table we have to work flat out to simply afford a place over our heads!
So, what do we do now, I hear you ask? Well, we go back to the drawing board and design a new system. One that actually supports people to live equitably and affordably in perpetuity!
This means stripping away from the market everything that we possibly can and, as we are within the six largest extinction period and have an overshoot day in July now, I might suggest that this is quite an urgent task at hand.
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