The Global Housing Market Is Broken, and It’s Dividing Entire Countries


The dream of owning a home is increasingly out of reach. Democratic and authoritarian governments alike are struggling with the consequences.


Graffiti made during a protest in May, in Minnesota, calling for an end to housing evictions during the pandemic.
Photographer: Michael Sulik/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

By Alan Crawford
September 19, 2021, 3:01 PM MDT

Soaring property prices are forcing people all over the world to abandon all hope of owning a home. The fallout is shaking governments of all political persuasions.

It’s a phenomenon given wings by the pandemic. And it’s not just buyers — rents are also soaring in many cities. The upshot is the perennial issue of housing costs has become one of acute housing inequality, and an entire generation is at risk of being left behind.

“We’re witnessing sections of society being shut out of parts of our city because they can no longer afford apartments,” Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller says. “That’s the case in London, in Paris, in Rome, and now unfortunately increasingly in Berlin.”

A Winter of Housing Discontent protest in Dublin in Sept. Ireland still bears the scars of a crash triggered by a housing bubble that burst during the financial crisis.
Photographer: Brian Lawless/PA Images/Getty Images

That exclusion is rapidly making housing a new fault line in politics, one with unpredictable repercussions. The leader of Germany’s Ver.di union called rent the 21st century equivalent of the bread price, the historic trigger for social unrest.


Politicians are throwing all sorts of ideas at the problem, from rent caps to special taxes on landlords, nationalizing private property, or turning vacant offices into housing. Nowhere is there evidence of an easy or sustainable fix.

In South Korea, President Moon Jae-in’s party took a drubbing in mayoral elections this year after failing to tackle a 90% rise in the average price of an apartment in Seoul since he took office in May 2017. The leading opposition candidate for next year’s presidential vote has warned of a potential housing market collapse as interest rates rise.

China has stepped up restrictions on the real-estate sector this year and speculation is mounting of a property tax to bring down prices. The cost of an apartment in Shenzhen, China’s answer to Silicon Valley, was equal to 43.5 times a resident’s average salary as of July, a disparity that helps explain President Xi Jinping’s drive for “common prosperity.”

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised a two-year ban on foreign buyers if re-elected.

The pandemic has stoked the global housing market to fresh records over the past 18 months through a confluence of ultra-low interest rates, a dearth of house production, shifts in family spending, and fewer homes being put up for sale. While that’s a boon for existing owners, prospective buyers are finding it ever harder to gain entry.

What we’re witnessing is “a major event that should not be shrugged off or ignored,” Don Layton, the former CEO of U.S. mortgage giant Freddie Mac, wrote in a commentary for the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

In the U.S., where nominal home prices are more than 30% above their previous peaks in the mid-2000s, government policies aimed at improving affordability and promoting home ownership risk stoking prices, leaving first-time buyers further adrift, Layton said.

Housing Affordability Is Getting Worse

In many OECD countries, the price to income ratio has risen dramatically since 1995

Housing Affordability Is Getting Worse

In many OECD countries, the price to income ratio has risen dramatically since 1995

Source: OECD house price to income ratio, percentage change from 1995 to 2020

The result, in America as elsewhere, is a widening generational gap b

Source: OECD house price to income ratio, percentage change from 1995 to 2020

The result, in America as elsewhere, is a widening generational gap between Baby Boomers, who are statistically more likely to own a home, and Millennials and Gen Z — who are watching their dreams of buying one go up in smoke.

Existing housing debt may be sowing the seeds of the next economic crunch if borrowing costs start to rise. Niraj Shah of Bloomberg Economics compiled a dashboard of countries most at threat of a real-estate bubble, and says risk gauges are “flashing warnings” at an intensity not seen since the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

See Bloomberg Economics’ analysis of housing bubble risks

In the search for solutions, governments must try and avoid penalizing either renters or homeowners. It’s an unenviable task.

Sweden’s government collapsed in June after it proposed changes that would have abandoned traditional controls and allowed more rents to be set by the market.

In Berlin, an attempt to tame rent increases was overturned by a court. Campaigners have collected enough signatures to force a referendum on seizing property from large private landlords. The motion goes to a vote on Sept. 26. The city government on Friday announced it'd buy nearly 15,000 apartments from two large corporate landlords for 2.46 billion euros ($2.9 billion) to expand supply.

Anthony Breach at the Centre for Cities think tank has even made the case for a link between housing and Britain’s 2016 vote to quit the European Union. Housing inequality, he concluded, is “scrambling our politics.”

As these stories from around the world show, that’s a recipe for upheaval.

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Global Housing Markets Are Hurting, and It’s Getting Political - Bloomberg