Platinum Jubilee 2022: 70 years of housing

In this Platinum Jubilee year, Halifax has looked at the way homes and housing have changed during Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign.

The analysis starts a year before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at a time when the country was recovering from World War II and some rationing was still in place.
 

House prices

• House prices across the UK have increased over 4-fold over the past 70 years, increasing by an average of 327% in real terms.
• Prices have risen at an average annual rate of 2.1%, slightly faster than the 1.1% per annum average rise in real earnings over the period.
• House prices in the 1980s recorded their biggest increase with a real rise of 49.4% between 1981 and 1991-more than double the increase of 21.8% over the last ten years.
• The poorest performing decade was the 1950s when house prices declined by 7% in real terms.

A changing market

• UK housing market has become more volatile since the 1970s, while continuing to grow over the long term.
• But for a small decline in the early 1950s, house prices were relatively stable in the 20 years to 1971.
• There have since been four periods of rapid real house price growth: 1971-73, 1977-80, 1985-89 and 1998-2007.
• Each period was succeeded by a marked fall in real house prices.
• The 'Noughties' housing boom - which lasted ten years - was by far the longest period of rapidly rising house prices.
• Over the last ten years growth has been staggered by slowing from 2016 to 2018 before rebounding.

House prices and earnings

• House prices over the last ten years have been at their highest in relation to incomes than at any decade over the last 70 years.
• House prices averaged 5.4 as a multiple of gross annual average earnings between 2011 and 2021.
• The House price: Earnings ratio (PE Ratio) is now more than double what it was when Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne (PE: 3.2)
• PE Ration reached its highest level in 2021 at 6.7.
• The average PE ratio since 1951 is 3.7.
• Property values were lowest in relation to earnings in the 1950s when the average house price to earnings ratio remained relatively stable between 1951 (3.3x) and 2001 (3.4x).
• It is only since the start of the new millennium that house price growth has accelerated beyond that of earnings.

Regional house prices

• The north-south house price divide has widened since 1971.
• House prices in the south have outperformed northern house prices over the past 50 years.
• London has recorded the biggest rise in house prices: a real rise of 408%, at an average annual rate of 3.3% (UK prices increased by 264% over the same period).
• East Anglia recorded the second biggest increase (317%), followed by East Midlands (284%).
• Scotland recorded the smallest increase with a real rise of 160%.

Tenure

• The pattern of tenure has changed dramatically since the 1950s.
• In 1953, 32% of homes were owner occupied, and half (50%) were privately rented.
• By the early 1970s, homeownership had increased to represent half of homes (51%).
• Homeownership peaked in 2001 at 70%.
• Private rentals have grown from 10 to 19% since 2001 – close to their 1971 level.

Housebuilding

• More than 14 million homes have been built in the UK in the past 70 years.
• The number of houses built in England in the last decade is 42% lower than in the decade from 1952-61.
• Peak housebuilding period was 1962-71, when over 3 million homes were constructed.

Housing quality

• There has been a marked Improvement in the quality of housing since the 1950s.
• In 1947 there were an estimated 5.3 million homes (42%) in Britain without bathrooms.
• By 1967 2.5 million homes (19% percent) still lacked an indoor WC.
• By 1991, fewer than 1% of households lacked an indoor toilet.

Warmer and drier

• Modern construction standards have pushed the energy efficiency of homes upward rapidly.
• The average EPC rating for home built since 2012 is B or higher.
• The average rating for all homes in England and Wales of D.
• One in ten homes built before the 1930s achieves an EPC rating of C.

See data tables and charts in the PDF for full detail.