Clive Lewis For Norwich South
Local press recently asked me to comment on new data which shows Norfolk house prices have become dramatically less affordable over the past 25 years. Here’s what I said:
“It’s become almost impossible for local people doing everyday jobs to get a big enough mortgage to afford a house. Far too many are left with no other option but to pay exorbitant private rents for often poor-quality accommodation.
We’ve got here because houses have become assets first and homes second in the last few decades. But the clear evidence is that building more homes or handing public cash to banks via schemes like Help to Buy won’t solve this. The problem of inflated prices lies in property speculation. We must clamp down on that with proven measures like Germany’s property speculation tax.”