This paper is the first in ACE’s housing paper series and explores in detail the conditions within the UK housing market.

It finds that there is a serious housing gap (where the number of households formed outstrips houses built) looming in the UK. The paper argues that unless the growing disconnect between supply and demand is tackled through major house building, the housing gap may prove potentially irrevocable. Such a failure to tackle this housing gap would have serious social and economic consequences for the UK.

The analysis in this report reveals that by 2021 the UK will have developed a housing gap of £185bn, the equivalent to 886,000 households, requiring housing to be built on the scale of a city twice the size of Birmingham. This additional gap on top of the already tight conditions in the housing market will if unchanged lead to a future where millions of people in the UK will be unable to afford to own a home.

This analysis highlights an urgent need for the housing gap to receive greater priority from government and all political parties, as well as the need for a new housing model to allow such increased house building to occur.

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