The housing ladder is broken. For Millennials and Gen Z, buying a home increasingly requires a leap.The UK housing crisis, first-time buyers, house prices, mortgages, renting, the Bank of Mum and Dad, and inheritance have fundamentally changed what home ownership means. For previous generations, the property ladder promised gradual progress: buy a flat, build equity, trade up to a family home. For many Millennials and Gen Z, that ladder simply doesn't exist anymore.I started thinking about this when I moved house.I was surrounded by removal boxes, crying while writing the essay that became this episode. Suggest we remove this bit: 'sitting on a chaise', I had lived in that house, on and off, since I was 21. I wrote my PhD there. I moved back after my father died. I raised my family there. My children were conceived there.And leaving it made me think about how strangely we talk about housing.We've spent decades talking about property as an investment. Getting on the ladder. Moving up the ladder. Building equity. Making the "right" property decisions.But a house is also something much more fundamental.It's a home.And I think younger generations are rediscovering that distinction, partly because the economics of housing have changed so dramatically.
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