ABSTRACT
The popular image of the owner-occupied sector is that of a young couple buying a newly built house on a mortgage. In fact, a third of owner-occupied dwellings were built before 1919, a third are occupied by retired people, and 45 per cent are owned outright. Planning policies restricting the supply of land or insisting on provision for car parking may counteract housing policies designed to encourage owner-occupation. Rent policies for the public sector may stimulate (or restrain) demand for home ownership. Governments face a difficult issue in determining how far owner-occupation should be encouraged. Social surveys clearly demonstrate that there are large unsatisfied aspirations, despite the huge growth in home ownership (which has doubled in the last twenty-five years). In addition to exempting owner-occupied houses from the capital gains tax of 1965, they announced the ‘stimulation of the planned growth of owner occupation by financial measures designed to widen its economic basis’.
