An Englishman’s home is meant to be his castle – it’s more like a rabbit hutch

Britain not only needs more houses, it needs bigger houses, says Matthew Lynn. The solution, however, may not be popular with everyone.

It does not take much to get the British talking about house prices. If they are going up, we argue about whether it's a bubble or not, and whether it is a threat to the economy. If they are going down, we fret about whether people are falling into negative equity. Even if they are going nowhere, we worry about why the market is flat.

But although we discuss overheating house prices obsessively, an important point is often overlooked. It is not just that our houses are too expensive, they are also too small, and, even worse, they're getting smaller.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.