Three ways of valuing property

Quote
"Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.”  John Ed Pearce

News

The behaviour of the housing market in the UK is difficult to predict.  Since the financial crisis of 2008, prices have not fallen significantly, despite the lack of credit and a subdued market.  Although demand continues to outstrip supply, the number of new homes built last year was the lowest since 1949.  First time buyers are still unable to get on the housing ladder, as the ratio of average first house prices to earnings remains stubbornly high (currently 4.4 against a long term trend of around 3.1). 

This analysis of the housing market is an economic one; we are also increasingly familiar with valuing a building environmentally, according to its energy efficiency.  But there is a third way to value property – relationally. 

High housing costs force many adults in their 20s and 30s to move back in with their parents, requiring both generations to make big adjustments to living as an extended family.  An increasing number of divorced couples remain living in the same house, bringing its own set of relational tensions, not least for their children.  Divorce also accounts for a large part of the demand for housing.  Other families are trapped in rented accommodation, unable to afford their first home; the uncertainty this brings puts additional pressure on relationships.

The 15 year boom in property prices up to 2008 in Britain led to a downgrading of the value of houses as homes – providing a sense of stability, belonging and identity.  Instead, houses ‘crossed the sacred barrier between home and capital,’ which helped fuel the nation’s fatal addiction to debt.  

It may take a generation to correct the current economic imbalances in the property market; however, the relational value of property can be rebuilt now by designing homes and living spaces which are not only environmentally sustainable, but which foster good relationships.  Avoiding anti-relational architecture such as high rise blocks, and creating multi-generational dwellings, more communal spaces, granny flats and other initiatives can help reduce the relational distance between generations, neighbours and across the wider community.

  

It’s time to think relationally about housing.

Read on

‘The R Option’ by Michael Schluter and David Lee explores ways to develop a relational lifestyle at home and work.  Read the chapter on Roots here.

Walk the talk

How relational is your own thinking about property?  If you are considering moving house, or making changes to your present one, how might you increase the relational value of your home?

The last word
From the Bible, Isaiah chapter 5, verse 8: “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.”