Housing market volatility and deprivation

This 2011 report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) examined housing market volatility with a view to the socio-economic aspects. The authors claim that house price volatility disproportionately affects more deprived areas and noted strong regional differences in average house prices that reflect differences in terms of regional deprivation. As housing market growth was concentrated in London and the South, they stated that price rises had not had a positive impact on the structural inequalities of deprived areas.

The authors also argued that “More deprived areas are associated with longer distance patterns of residential mobility” – in other words when people in these areas move house they generally move a further distance than people from less deprived areas.

The report draws attention to affordability becoming a key concern for house buyers. Indeed, a more recent report by JRF finds that housing deprivation and poverty are set to rise steeply by 2040, predicting that “private rents will rise by 90 per cent – more than twice as fast as incomes” and potentially “pushing up to 50 per cent of private renters into poverty”.