Senior Full Stack Developer
28th December 2025
We all know there’s a housing crisis. We’re repeatedly told in news articles about the housing crisis. Online influencers and commentators talk about the housing crisis all the time. Although this article is focused on the UK, this is a common theme across the whole developed world - house prices are so high that nobody can afford to buy them.
And yet, when you think about it, something doesn’t quite make sense. If people can’t afford to buy houses, why are estate agents still in business? Why are ‘Sold’ signs appearing every day?
Here’s the thing - there is no crisis. People are buying houses all the time! The market isn’t broken at all, it’s functioning exactly as intended. House prices are high specifically because there is a queue of people with money ready to buy.
To be clear, I’m not claiming that there isn’t a problem. I know a lot of people who want to buy (or move) but they’re really struggling. Something is clearly wrong. But prices and availability aren’t the problem. The problem is people’s expectations.
Think about it - if house prices halved overnight for no apparent reason, lots of people would get very excited and try and buy a house right away. This surge in demand would immediately cause prices to revert again. This is an efficient market in action - prices are a function of supply and demand.
Even when conditions soften and buyers gain a bit more leverage, the market still clears: transactions keep happening in huge numbers. At the time of writing, we’re in a buyer’s market where there are more sellers than buyers, and therefore prices are stagnating a bit. But overall there are around 100,000 residential property transactions per month in the UK. And it’s been like that for years.
And you might try and tell me that the majority of buyers are people who already own a property and are just shuffling around the ladder. If that were true, the market could look “busy” while still being basically closed to newcomers. But actually, first-time buyers are the largest single group of buyers, accounting for about 35-40% of all buyers. Which means a big chunk of demand is people entering the market for the first time - and that first-time buyer activity is only projected to increase.
I find it slightly ironic when two people are both looking to buy a house, and they’re both complaining to each other about how expensive houses are. They don’t even seem to realise that they’re competing against one another, and that that competition is exactly what causes houses to be expensive!
Now here’s a claim that’s sure to get people riled up: when people say they “can’t afford a house”, what they actually mean is they “can’t afford a detached three-bedroom house in a trendy postcode”. A lot of people straight up don’t bother trying to buy a property, claiming “there are no houses in my price range”. Which is a lie! Go on Rightmove and actually look! There are flats, places in the outskirts, run down properties that need work, distressed or outdated housing all over the place. The problem is: nobody wants these properties - everyone thinks they deserve better.
To be fair, if you work hard and save money for multiple years, it’s insulting to be rewarded with a beaten up flat in the middle of nowhere. But the reality is, affordable property is out there; it’s just crap compared to what we’re used to, and nobody wants to live there. The crisis is that we feel entitled to our parents’ lifestyle without moving to where our parents lived. Previous generations bought homes with no central heating, much worse levels of insulation, outdated or even toxic plumbing, and generally much fewer safety features. Today, we view a “fixer-upper” as a crisis.
At the end of the day the housing market is just like any other market - ruthless and efficient. Prices are set based on what people are willing to pay. There are only two reasons why house prices would go down:
In my view, high house prices are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The only thing that could realistically bring prices down is if something even worse happened in the economy - in which case buying houses wouldn’t be very high on people’s lists anyway.
Ultimately the price of houses isn’t the problem. Believe it or not, housing is affordable. The question isn’t ‘Why are houses so expensive’? The question is ‘Am I willing to buy what is actually within my budget’?