Chloe Timperley lives in Sheffield. For Generation Rent, she interviewed MPs, economists and activists, went undercover at a property investment conference, joined a tenants' union, and attended seminars on everything from ending homelessness to evicting tenants. Most importantly, she listened to the stories of hundreds of tenants.

PREFACE. Generation Rent is ultimately the story of how the UK turned its youth into an asset class. In the late 20th to early 21st centuries, housing went from basic good to financial asset. Our homes went from being a store of wealth for occupiers to a store of wealth for landlords and speculators

SECTION I. TRYING TO BUY A HOME
CAN’T BUY, WON’T BUY. Why Olivia and Izaak, an ordinary couple in their twenties with good jobs, cannot buy a home in the UK. Like their friends. At the peak of the homeownership dream, in 2007, 73 per cent of the population owned their own home. A decade later, in 2016, the figure was 63 per cent

‘REFUSING TO LEAVE HOME’. An older generation is blaming young people for still living with their parents, but the reality is that homes are too expensive to buy. Private renters are expected to outnumber people with a mortgage by 2025. Unfortunately, privately rented homes are often poor quality

A SHORT HISTORY OF BRITISH HOMES. Looking at land use and tenure in the UK the Norman Conquest to the late 1970s, focussing on the post-war ‘Golden Age’ when the UK government and local authorities embarked on widespread building programmes that created mostly high-quality council housing

SELLING OFF COUNCIL HOMES. When the post-war consensus crumbled, Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government launched the Right to Buy in 1981, giving council tenants the ability to buy their municipal home at a discount. It was wildly popular. But it led to less council housing and higher rents

BOOM! THE IMPACT OF CREDIT. Most people answer the question ‘Why is there a housing crisis?’ with one or both of these reasons: a) We aren’t building enough houses b) There too many people in the UK. But the real answer is a massive expansion of credit unleashed with financial liberalisation

SAY HELLO TO THE LANDLORD. Previously pushed out by rent controls and limited supply in the 20th Century until the 1970s, the number of landlords rose from the Thatcher era onwards. Buy-to-let mortgages increased the number of private investors buying homes, often pricing out first-time buyers

CAUGHT IN THE MORTGAGE TRAP. Affordability tests bar renters from getting a mortgage - even though they are paying more in rent than they would by buying a home. In 2018, the Santander bank found that renting a home anywhere in the UK was more expensive than owning one. London had the biggest gap.

SECTION II. HELP FOR BUYERS
THE BANK OF MUM AND DAD. increasingly and significantly for the country’s house prices, parents are handing over large lump sum gifts that can be put down as a deposit on a home that would be otherwise unaffordable. If BOMAD were a real bank it would be the 11th biggest in the UK

OFFICIAL HELP TO BUY. Assessing the Government help available for first-time buyers, including the Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee, the Help to Buy Equity Loan Scheme, the Help to Buy ISA, and the Lifetime ISA. Have these schemes worked by helping more young people buy a house?

SHARING A HOME. Shared ownership allows people to buy between 25 per cent and 75 per cent of a home and pay rent on the remaining share. Although a good idea, one scheme, HomeBuy Direct, does not always work. What happens when housing associations abuse their power?

MORTGAGED TENANTS. Most people who own homes in England and Wales are ‘freeholders,’ but some are 'leaseholders' - and they can be exploited with ruses such as the doubling ground rent scandal, a symptom of the growing financialisation of home-buyers and tenants

THE HOMEOWNERSHIP DREAM SOURS. For a time, owning a home was a great social leveller. Fast-forward to 2020, and that same ‘homeownership dream,’ even when fulfilled, no longer promises the same sort of freedom. Today’s first-time buyers are often mortgaged up to the eyeballs

SECTION III. HOW HOMES ARE BUILT
WHY CAN'T WE JUST BUILD MORE NEW HOMES? This is a common question but just freeing up land will not work. On average it takes 15 years from the granting of planning permission to the keys being handed to buyers. Properties are deliberately drip-fed onto the market to maintain high prices locally

SHIPPING CONTAINERS: CHEAPER HOMES. One entrepreneur in Sheffield, Jon Johnson, is trying to shake-up the market by creating affordable homes from shipping containers. They can make accommodation for the homeless, trendy offices, hipster cafés, and luxury custom-built homes. But will it work?

SELLING PLANNING PERMISSION. Looking at the controversial role of land agents and asking whether compulsory purchase orders would be the solution to the housing crisis, by speeding up the development process and forcing the mass building of new homes. Sets out the legal position governing the idea

LETTING THE LOCAL ECONOMY. Why does £800,000 buy a seven-bedroomed mansion in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, but only a tiny studio in London? Calculating how the value of homes is linked to the economic productivity of the local area, which influences rents more than property. It is rent for the area

SECTION IV. A NATION OF RENTERS
HELPING OUT THE LANDLORDS. Introduced by the 1988 Housing Act, Assured Tenancies more or less ended rent controls. Rents could be increased periodically, either by a valid rent review clause in the initial tenancy agreement or by issuing a notice under Section 13. Evictions were made easier

THE HOUSE OF LANDLORDS. Some 72 of the MPs who voted down a motion to ensure that tenants had the same right to good standard accommodation as dogs were themselves registered landlords. At the 2015 Conservative Party Conference, the ‘adult children stuck in the family home’ narrative was wheeled out

GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. By default, if you rent a residential property in England and Wales, then (as mentioned previously) you’re bound by the rules of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy, which can allow no-fault evictions after an initial minimum six-month period

REVENGE EVICTIONS. In 2015, Parliament passed the Deregulation Act, which was supposed to put rogue landlords out of business, but they are still in business. Revenge evictions can still take place providing landlords carry out basic steps – as shown by the experiences of Laura and her husband Mike

THE REALITY OF RENTING. Generation Rent, the charity organisation, invited people to share their renting horror stories on Twitter via the hashtag #ventyourrent. Black mould, broken windows, no hot water or heating, bullying landlords who say 'so what?' The landlord-tenant relationship can be feudal

REGULATING THE RENTAL MARKET. Dan Wilson Craw, head of campaign group Generation Rent, told me, there’s an argument for controlling rents now even if it isn’t a permanent fix. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for a London Living Rent. Could regulation of the private rental market work well?

WITH THE COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS. What is a tenants’ union? Spending time with ACORN renters’ union in Sheffield to find out more about their work and the response of tenants. ACORN – Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – was inspired by US ‘radical’ activist Saul Alinsky

COULD BUILD-TO-RENT HELP? A new business model in property development is promising to revolutionise the private rented sector: build-to-rent. Rather than selling off newly-built homes to investors, build-to-rent companies design high-quality apartment blocks aimed at catering to Generation Rent

SECTION V: SOCIAL HOUSING NOW
LIVING ON A COUNCIL ESTATE. Criminology Professor Stephen Farrall showed the ‘priority need’ system exacerbated the unusual social mix on council estates. Poverty, drug abuse, unemployment and crime have become concentrated disproportionately in them. Homeless people refuse to move to some estates

HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS UNDER PRESSURE. The 1985 and 1988 Housing Acts encouraged councils to ‘voluntarily’ transfer housing stock to housing associations – regulated at ‘arm’s length’ by a quango called the Housing Corporation. This paved the way for a more market-oriented social rented sector

'INTENTIONALLY HOMELESS'. One day Mia, an early years practitioner in England's Midlands, got home from work to find a ‘for sale’ board outside her house. She had lived in the house for six years but now was being booted out in a no-fault eviction. Mia spent four months in her sister’s place.

SOCIAL HOUSING: THE END GAME. Several council estates in London have been bulldozed and replaced with private housing by councils and developers working hand-in-hand to ‘improve’ inner-city areas. Gentrification is in the blog Regenerating Hackney’s Estates: Dirty Tricks of a Dirty Council

SECTION VI. WITH THE LANDLORDS.
'IS ANYBODY HERE A SOCIALIST?' At seminar at the National Landlord Investment Show, we hear from Tony Gimple, co-owner of the advisory firm Less Tax for Landlords. He asks: ‘Is anybody here a socialist?' No-one puts a hands up. ‘And is anybody here easily offended?’ Again, nothing.

AT THE LANDLORD ADVICE ROADSHOW. Entering the Residential Landlords Association’s ‘Landlord Advice Roadshow’ in Sheffield, posing as a property investor. Those attending probably represent more conscientious property owners. But not all of them.

NEST EGG: PROPERTY AS A PENSION. The ‘get-rich-quick’ accusations are only fair for a certain subsection of the landlord population. The fact is, a large proportion of people getting into small-time landlordism do it because they want to top up or create from scratch a healthy retirement income

INSIDE THE BUY-TO-LET INDUSTRY. Inside the National Landlord Investment Show at London's Olympia, which plays host to investment consultants, councillors, lawyers, estate agents and mortgage brokers, all giving their thoughts on...