On the eve of the First World War, home ownership in Britain stood at _____ per cent. Take a guess.
Today's Quiz: Early Twentieth Century Home Ownership in Britain
Posted in * General Interest
On the eve of the First World War, home ownership in Britain stood at _____ per cent. Take a guess.
Ten percent?
less than 10%
OK, more than 10%. Now I have a 90% chance of being right.
(hmmm, maybe should have guessed “more than 1%”).
let’s take a stab at 25%.
Total guess: 7%
If it’s anything like the US, it was somewhere around 45%.
Do we look down to the bottom of the page to find the answer? 😉
7%
10% says today’s (London) Times
That was my guess.
It still isn’t very high. My great aunt “owned” her own home, but it was a leasehold condo with only 35 years left on the lease. She got it cheap because she bought it after she retired and didn’t think that she’d make it to 102 without moving to a nursing home. It’s very common to build a home on leased land, because the landowners don’t want to sell.
Many of the landowners now include escalation clauses, which were not common in the early 1900s and were not a feature of my aunt’s lease. By the time she bought, the lease payments of 30 pounds per year were ludicrously small, but all upkeep such as drainage and paving were the tenant’s responsibility.
Various land reforms have allowed tenants to buy their land as freehold, however, in 2002 there were still over 1 million condos and 1 million houses under leasehold arrangements. Not to mention commercial property, especially in London where a great deal of the land is owned by the Crown Estates.
Hey, do I get a prize? 😉