Strong accusation. Probably a reflection of a UK culture of house buying, rather than BBC bias.
On the other hand, the supply is physically limited due to the geographic constraints. Sure, we could build more condo towers, but that would just delay the problem for a generation or two, while lowering the life quality compared to detached right now.
I think, a better solution would be a wider acceptance of telecommuting to relax the geographical constraints, and trying to put more people in the loop of the economic value creation to give them more purchasing power.
Really? Chinese are notorious for investing in the Chinese real estate market, and investing in stocks is avoided. That's at least what most people seem to follow. The hyper-rich have probably better investing ideas..
>On the other hand, the supply is physically limited due to the geographic constraints.
Real estate is not expensive because of lack of land, since almost every country has large areas of cheap land. Real estate is becoming more (and already is) expensive for so many because the trend is to move into bigger cities, inside which supply is limited. (And the supply is typically limited by regulation, not lack of land per se).
These aren't good "starter homes".
This financing option seems very applicable to the overpriced/underutilized housing problem.