The threat of a double-dip recession and the eurozone crisis may have pushed the housing market from the headlines but the fact remains that the UK is still in the midst of a real estate crisis.
Home ownership is decreasing, social housing waiting lists are increasing and estimates forecast that rent on private properties could increase by as much as 20 per cent in the next five years.
In 2001, just prior to the boom in property prices, home ownership in the UK was at a high of 72.5 per cent of the population but forecasters are predicting that this will drop to around 63.8 per cent by 2021. Some homeowners are even letting out their own properties and moving into rented accommodation as this is the only way that they can afford to upsize their property. Click here to see if you can afford to take out a larger mortgage and buy a bigger property.
There are currently 4.5 million people on the waiting list for social housing in England alone and, despite the expected rise in private rental costs, the number of private-sector rentals is expected to increase by 20 per cent between now and 2016. This is particularly bad news for areas of the country where demand for rented property is already outweighing supply by as much as five-to-one.
So could communal living be the way out of this housing crisis?
It may sound like some 1960s hippy ideal but some rural communities are already leading the way with communes committed to sustainable living and a low-carbon lifestyle.
One such commune is Brithdir Mawr in Newport where 12 residents tend to the land, garden and farm organically around the huge farm house that acts as the focal point for their community. They also recycle and conserve resources and are off the grid for both electricity and water.
Whilst community life is centred around the farm yard, each person or family has their own living space either within the main farm house or in one of the nearby converted farm buildings. Each unit or flat has it’s own kitchen, sitting room and bedrooms but bathrooms are communal.
Most of the community’s food is grown on site and energy is provided via wind, sun and rain, which provides power for everything from power tools to personal computers.
As people in almost every section of society are finding that they are getting priced out of the housing market somewhere along the line, so more and more are having to be imaginative when it comes to living arrangements. However, growth is slow and the number of housing co-operatives has risen by just 34, to 686, since 2008 and there are currently only 92,000 co-operative homes across the UK.
However, given the success of Brithdir Mawr and other such communities, this could become a model for more and more people across the UK.