Kevin McCloud is urging first-time buyers to move to Germany if they can’t afford Britain’s crippling house prices.
The Grand Designs host, 64, dished out the advice as he savaged “immoral” housing developers for making an average of almost £70,000 profit per house or flat. He blasted: “Somebody asked me this question the other day: ‘What do you say to anybody who’s buying a house in this difficult time for the first time?’
“I look at the UK market and I see nothing good here. I look at what’s happening in Germany, Holland, Netherlands, Denmark, Scandinavia, I look at other, almost every other North European country and Canada – they’ve got really healthy markets, lots of diverse opportunities, lots of diverse offers and it isn’t hugely expensive. So, yeah, my advice is move to Germany, maybe that’s the way forward!”
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Kevin added the average profit “big housing developers” are raking in every time they sell a house or flat was now “about £68,000”.
It’s 10 times what it was in 2009. He said: “They’ve shifted their focus from volume and meeting government targets to the profit they deliver to their shareholders. Persimmon, the year before last made £1.1 billion of profit for their shareholders, 25 per cent of their turnover. I’ve only got one word for it and I think it’s immoral.”
(Image: Channel 4 / Malgosia Czarniecka Lonsdale.)
Kevin hit out as the average house price in London hurtles towards £1million. As the cost-of-living crisis rages on, the typical UK house price rose from £260,420 in February to £261,14 in March. Kevin said the “stigma” of renting for life needs removed in Britain amid the eye-watering prices – like it is in Europe. He added: “Why should renting be bad? Why are we obsessed with ownership? “It’s an idea that was promoted by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s to win more conservative votes.
(Image: Getty Images)
“It’s got nothing to do with social status or standing or respect or integrity. And in other countries – France and Germany for example – renting is a norm. And for that matter, it used to be the same in the UK, you could rent a home in the 1950s and early 1960s and there was no stigma attached to it. It was simply an alternative to buying in a diverse market.
(Image: WireImage)
And what happened was that housing became weaponised by the government and we haven’t looked back since. And as a result, people look at housing simply as a means to make money.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
