The UK Association of Letting Agents has teamed up with around 30 other European professional property bodies to consider how to improve younger peoples’ participation in housing.

The International Union of Property Owners – which represents more than five million landlords and owners, and some 20 million individual properties across Europe – has met in Oslo. 

Many of the countries face broadly similar problems to those in the UK, in terms of a relative shortage of homes compared to demand with the consequence being high rents and house prices, plus difficulties in accessing borrowing in some cases. 

“Young generations’ access to the housing market is a major issue of the decade and it needs to be tackled. Rather than imposing rent control and high taxation, we believe that we have to correct the damages of the [financial] crisis in a way that does not endanger financial as well as macroeconomic stability” says UIPI president Stratos Paradias. 

Richard Price, executive director at UKALA, says: “It comes as no surprise that younger generations are finding it much harder to enter the housing market across Europe. Increasing the supply of affordable housing is the most likely factor to improve the situation in the UK, but this needs to go hand in hand with a stable economy and confidence in employment prospects.”