Mortgage payers are now in the minority in the UK.
Data from the census reveals that there are more people renting, and more people owning their homes outright, than there are people still paying off their mortgage.
Within the EU just three countries – Germany, Austria and Denmark – have more renters as a share of their population than there are in the UK.
Many mortgage payers – those paying variable rates or whose fixed deals have expired – have either been hit with significant rises to their monthly payments or been forced to extend terms, meaning they are paying off the loan more slowly.
And there’s more pain still to come, sharply perhaps in coming months – there was a big spike of mortgages arranged before the pandemic-era stamp duty holiday ended – any of those deals that had a two-year fix will be coming to a close around now.
But it’s not just mortgage payers who are exposed to those rises, renters are vulnerable too.
And they are typically in a worse place to start off with, spending more of their income on housing costs as a percentage – 33% on average (42% in London), compared with 22% for mortgage payers.
They are also more likely to live in non-decent standard homes, have lower savings, and lower incomes overall.
What’s happening with renters?
Research by Zoopla estimates that around 60% of rented properties are mortgaged, with most of those on interest only mortgages, meaning they are particularly exposed to rate changes.
For the two in five Britons who are renters, a rise in monthly repayments is nothing new. Many landlords raise rent each year, to keep up with inflation or market demand, even when mortgage repayments were staying relatively low.
Now however, those landlords whose repayments are going up could be forced to raise rents by more to ensure they aren’t losing money month on month.
That’s what happened to Andi Michalakis, a 51-year-old in Stevenage who lives in a three-bed house, currently surrounded by boxes containing her belongings, along with her 14-year-old son.
Image: Andi Michalakis, 51, has been served an eviction notice by her landlord after she disputed a rent rise
Andi says her landlord doesn’t have a job, but lets out multiple properties that he owns and has a mortgage on the one she’s been living in for the past nine years.
Through the time she’s been there her rent has typically risen by a manageable £25 a month each year. Andi explains that she would carry out maintenance like painting, fixing taps and work in the garden out of her own pocket rather than at the expense of the landlord. She has never missed a rent payment.
During the pandemic there was no change to her rent, but at the beginning of 2022 it went up by £75 a month, to £1,200. Less than a year later her landlord asked for £1,300, which was too much to afford – particularly as Andi’s work-life and health had changed during the pandemic.
Andi had to stop working for a time due to illness, and her work in the fashion industry was affected by lockdown, meaning that £100 extra her landlord was asking for represented almost half of all that she had left after paying the rent.
Andi’s family had already been helping out with shopping – her sister would bring food while her brother would come through with toiletries and other essentials.
She spoke to the council to explore her options in resisting the further £100 increase – they told her that the landlord was now asking for £1,425 instead – a 19% increase on the £1,200 she was paying before.
Soon after, he issued a Section 21 “no fault” eviction notice, starting the process of removing Andi from the place she had made her home for the past decade.
Sky News tried to contact Andi’s landlord, via the estate agent and through the council, but he was unavailable to comment. The estate agent said they would not have asked for a rent increase as high as £225, because it was too much of a jump in one hit.
More than 30,000 people have reached out to homelessness prevention support after being issued Section 21 notices since the start of January 2022, with the number rising more recently. Many people, like Andi, can’t pass affordability tests on new rentals after being evicted, despite perfect records of paying rent on time historically.
Avoiding homelessness
Andi’s biggest fear at the moment is that she ends up homeless, in inappropriate temporary accommodation, potentially sharing a room with her teenage son, and is forced to stay there for years until she gets to the top of the priority list for housing.
She has been warned that temporary accommodation may not even be in Stevenage where her son goes to school.
“He’s a teenage boy, he needs his own space to do the things he likes. I’ve heard of cases of people stuck like that for years. Who wants to be locked in one room like that with their mother?”
Jasmine Basran, Head of Policy and Campaigns at homeless charity Crisis, told Sky News that competition in the private rental sector is making things particularly difficult for those worst off.
“With what’s happening with mortgages, everyone’s turning to the private rented sector and therefore, landlords have choice.
“Often it’s people on the lowest incomes who get turned away from properties because a landlord can find someone else who’s willing to let the property who they feel is more secure or who can cover a higher cost of rent.”
Mortgage holders
Although mortgage holders are being squeezed at the moment, they are in a comparatively comfortable spot. The majority will have equity in the house or other savings to fall back on, and higher average earnings in general.
Depending on how far along you are with repaying your mortgage, servicing the interest may be a relatively small contribution. The rate that fully owned properties have been increasing recently suggests that there will be large groups more people with small amounts left to pay, who will become full owners in the coming years.
Mortgage holders are also empowered to negotiate lower monthly repayments with banks who have committed to support them and find solutions that avoid repossessions, in a way that renters often can’t with their landlords.
UK Finance, a banking and finance research group, estimates that around 7,000 mortgage holders will have their homes repossessed this year, far fewer than that number seeking homelessness support after being served Section 21 notices. After the 2008 financial crash 40,000 homes were repossessed.
James Tatch, Head of Analytics at UK Finance, said: “Mortgage holders came into this in a really strong place in general, because mortgage arrears are at historic lows. That’s thanks partly to the ultra-low rates we’ve had in recent years, as well as more responsible lending, and the savings many households built up during COVID.
“In that situation, lenders will work with every borrower to work out the best solution to their specific situation. That might be a reduction of the mortgage for a certain amount of time, or a change to paying interest only.”
Competition in the rental market
One of the reasons that evictions from private rental can lead towards homelessness is the competition in the rental market.
“We are starting to see a big increase in people needing help and ending up in temporary accommodation because there’s nowhere else for them to go,” said Ms Barsan.
There are five people competing over every room advertised in house and flat shares on SpareRoom, while Rightmove report a 42% increase in demand for rental properties from 2019 to 2023.
This squeeze has been driven by both an increase in renters seeking rooms as well as a reduction in the number of rooms available, with data from SpareRoom showing an additional 69,000 renters competing over 27,000 fewer rooms compared to 2017.
Some areas in England have experienced faster rent increases than others – a small handful have even seen reductions. The map below shows change in rents by area, for the lower end of the market (the cheapest 25%) and for the middle of the market (average rents).
In Middlesbrough, those cheaper rents have increased by 15.4%, from £390 to £450. That would have been the middle of the market last year, now it’s among the cheapest you can find.
Rents for newly advertised properties have increased even faster than for those in existing tenancies, perhaps explaining a motivation for landlords to remove long-standing tenants.
The average price of rental properties advertised on Rightmove in the UK increased by 10.2%, from £1,283 to £1,413 in the year to June. Prices for rooms in house and flat shares advertised on SpareRoom are 14.5% higher than a year ago across the UK on average, up from £678 to £776 a month in July this year.
Social housing
The current waiting list for social housing stands at 1.2 million. With sell-offs and demolitions, many local authorities end up with a net loss of social housing year-on-year, despite a rising population.
Because of this lack of capacity, the most vulnerable homeless households are prioritised for social housing, while others are moved into temporary accommodation.
Despite being disabled and having a teenage child, Andi is in priority Band D, the fourth lowest. Those in Band A are often seeking refuge from domestic violence, for example.
This means she often misses out on offers of suitable housing and is left with options she has to decline because of her mobility issues.
The number of households living in temporary accommodation now stands at its highest since records began in 1998.
What can be done to solve the housing crisis?
Crisis say that there are things that the government can do right now to ease the housing crisis.
“The other side of temporary accommodation, apart from the very human cost of what people are having to go through by living there, is that it has a phenomenal financial cost to local authorities,” says Ms Basran.
Councils spent at least £1.6 billion on temporary accommodation in the latest year, according to the government’s own analysis.
“That’s a huge amount of money to manage people in homelessness. And that money could be used to support people into long term housing, if we had a clear plan of delivery, and unfreeze housing benefit so that more properties are affordable to people.”
A spokesperson from the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities said: “Our landmark Renters (Reform) Bill will deliver a fairer deal for both renters and landlords. We are abolishing section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions to give tenants greater security in their homes.
“We are also improving availability of social housing. Our Levelling Up White Paper committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes, and many of the new homes delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for social rent.
“We are on track to deliver 1 million new homes in this parliament, and we are investing £11.5 billion to build more of the affordable, quality homes this country needs.”
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An MP has told Sky News she was attacked online by the Tate brothers after she participated in a debate in the House of Commons about violence against women.
The controversial duo, Andrew and Tristan Tate, are facing charges of rape and human trafficking in the UK – all of which they deny.
But they are still very active online, and according to Sorcha Eastwood, the MP for Lagan Valley, are targeting her.
In a document seen by Sky News, Tristan Tate has highlighted one of the MP’s tweets and writes in private correspondence: “MP, nice target, can we sue her?”
Sorcha Eastwood says at first she thought the replies were from parody accounts and not the Tate brothers.
Her original tweet was about Elon Musk, not the Tate brothers. The MP said Musk’s tweets should be looked at through a counter-extremism lens.
“I was really concerned, I was concerned because to me that is a direct attack for want of a better phrase on me serving my constituents.
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“I couldn’t believe that they decided to pick this random Northern Irish MP. The fact that it wasn’t even about them. This is something I didn’t go looking for.
“I think from my perspective, it’s a very, very sinister attempt to shut down important voices in public life, political discourse.”
It was only when she started noticing an uptick in abuse from other accounts she realised she had encountered some of the brothers’ followers.
“I had rape threats. I had death threats. I had people saying I should be hung from a lamppost. I had people saying I should be chopped into liver. I also had people then who were like we’ll waste 15 minutes raping Sorcha Eastwood.”
Image: A representative for the Tate brothers told Sky News that there was no targeted campaign against Sorcha Eastwood
A representative for the Tate brothers told Sky News that there was no targeted campaign against her.
They said: “Ms Eastwood has a distorted view regarding social media if she believes one is required to ‘invite or ask’ people to interact.
“Tristan Tate is entitled to his view in relation to her tweet regarding Elon Musk.”
The self-styled “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have both been charged with human trafficking, face allegations of trafficking minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering in Romania.
There is also a European arrest warrant for them as they are facing separate, unrelated charges of rape and human trafficking in the UK. They deny all charges.
Ms Eastwood now worries for others who don’t have a platform like her and who may not feel like they can speak out.
“If this is what has happened to me I have absolutely no doubt that this has happened to others where they have been attempted to be silenced.”
Keir Starmer has previously commented on the Tate brothers’ case in the Commons saying it is “a live issue”, but adding that “the principle is absolutely clear” in relation to whether the brothers should face justice.
Sorcha Eastwood says she wants to see the government do much more to protect against abuse online.
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Tate brothers deny wrongdoing
“I think ultimately the government has taken the wrong course on this. They need to step up.
“This should be an issue of national security as far as the radicalisation of young people online. It should be an issue in terms of the levels of misinformation, disinformation and the lack of trust that is had in our politics right across the UK and Europe.
“I want the government to help me, help every other person to crack down on this and get serious about it. And the only way they’ll be able to do that, is by hitting these tech companies in the only language which they understand, which is money and via robust legislation.”
A government spokesperson said: “Violence against women and girls is a scourge on our society which is why we have set out an unprecedented mission to halve these crimes within a decade.
“Tackling illegal abuse both online and offline is central to supporting victims and preventing harm in our communities and we will not hesitate to strengthen laws to deliver this mission.
“Last month, parts of the Online Safety Act came into force meaning companies must take action to protect users from illegal material including extreme sexual violence.
“Further protections from this summer will require platforms to protect children from harmful, misogynistic, and violent content.”
In parts of Birmingham, the stench is overwhelming – enough to make you heave.
At a block of flats in Highgate, in Birmingham city centre, we find a mountain of bin liners full of rubbish spewing out of the cavernous bin store, which is normally locked.
Mickel comes out to speak to us, while all around bin liners lie open, with the contents for all to see, including used nappies and rotting food.
Image: Mickel says they’ve had ‘foxes and rats, literally the size of cats’
Image: Outside Mickel’s flat in Highgate, bin liners lie open, spewing out rubbish
We both find it hard to keep talking amid the awful smell.
“We’ve had foxes and rats, literally the size of cats, flies, it’s just nasty, something needs to be done,” he says.
Image: Chris says the situation is ‘overwhelming’ as she’s ‘terrified of rats’
Around the corner, I meet Chris, in her dressing gown, popping the bins into her bin store beneath her flat before work.
She unlocks it, and although it isn’t bursting out on to the street yet, it is getting full.
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She says the situation is “overwhelming” as she’s “terrified of rats”. But, even so, she has sympathy for the striking bin workers.
“It’s not an easy job; they must have a heart of gold to do that job,” she says.
“Pay them whatever they need, they deserve it.”
Image: Striking bin workers at Lifford Lane tip, south of the city centre
Image: There’s an awful smell coming from a mountain of bin liners outside Mickel’s flat in Highgate
At Lifford Lane tip, south of the city centre, Brigette has pulled up alongside picketing workers. The back seat of her car is full of rubbish.
She apologises for the terrible waft, mixed with air freshener.
“It’s very pungent, isn’t it? Not nice,” she admits.
“It’s unfortunate, I have some sympathies for all the parties, but, equally, we have a duty of care to stay clean and tidy.”
She says she has her rubbish and that of her elderly aunt and plans to make weekly trips to the tip until a resolution in this pay dispute between the council and the Unite union is found.
The US is “our closest ally” but “nothing is off the table” in response to Donald Trump’s 10% tariffs on imports from the UK, the business secretary has said.
In a statement following the US president’s nearly hour-long address to the world, Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers.
“That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.”
Mr Reynolds reiterated the statements from the prime minister and his cabinet over the past few days, saying the US is “our closest ally”, and the government’s approach is to “remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today”.
Image: Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds says “nothing is off the table” following the tariffs announcement. Pic: PA
But he continued: “We have a range of tools at our disposal, and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses, including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.
“Nobody wants a trade war, and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table, and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”
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‘Get back round the negotiating table’, say Tories
The Conservative Party’s shadow business and trade secretary described the US president’s announcement as “disappointing news which will worry working families across the country”.
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Sky’s Ed Conway examines how economies across the world are impacted by tariffs
Andrew Griffith hit out at the government for having “failed to negotiate with President Trump’s team for too many months after the election, failed to keep our experienced top trade negotiator, and failed to get a deal to avoid the imposition of these tariffs by our closest trading partner”.
“The chancellor’s emergency budget of just a week ago with its inadequate headroom is now at risk, casting uncertainty about more taxes or spending cuts,” he continued. “Sadly, it is British businesses and workers who will pay the price for Labour’s failure.”
He called on ministers to “swallow their pride” and “get back round the negotiating table to agree a fair deal to protect jobs and consumers in both the UK and the US alike”.
Relief in Westminster – but concessions to Trump to come
It has been quite a rollercoaster for the government, where they went from the hope that they could avoid tariffs, that they could get that economic deal, to the realisation that was not going to happen, and then the anticipation of how hard would the UK be hit.
In Westminster tonight, there is actual relief because the UK is going to have a 10% baseline tariff – but that is the least onerous of all the tariffs we saw President Trump announce.
He held up a chart of the worst offenders, and the UK was well at the bottom of that list.
No 10 sources were telling me as President Trump was in the Rose Garden that while no tariffs are good, and it’s not what they want, the fact the UK has tariffs that are lower than others vindicates their approach.
They say it’s important because the difference between a 20% tariff and a 10% tariff is thousands of jobs.
Where to next? No 10 says it will “keep negotiating, keep cool and calm”, and reiterated Sir Keir Starmer’s desire to “negotiate a sustainable trade deal”.
“Of course want to get tariffs lowered. Tomorrow we will continue with that work,” a source added.
Another source said the 10% tariff shows that “the UK is in the friendlies club, as much as that is worth anything”.
Overnight, people will be number-crunching, trying to work out what it means for the UK. There is a 25% tariff on cars which could hit billions in UK exports, in addition to the blanket 10% tariff.
But despite this being lower than many other countries, GDP will take a hit, with forecasts being downgraded probably as we speak.
I think the government’s approach will be to not retaliate and try to speed up that economic deal in the hope that they can lower the tariffs even further.
There will be concessions. For example, the UK could lower the Digital Services Tax, which is imposed on the UK profits of tech giants. Will they loosen regulation on social media companies or agricultural products?
But for now, there is relief the UK has not been hit as hard as many others.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has reacted furiously to Mr Trump’s announcement of a “destructive trade war”, and called on the government to stand up against “Trump’s attempts to divide and rule”.
“The prime minister should bring our Commonwealth and European partners together in a coalition of the willing against Trump’s tariffs, using retaliatory tariffs where necessary and signing new trade deals with each other where possible.”
Speaking on Wednesday evening at a White House event entitled ‘Make America Wealthy Again’, the US president unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.
Mr Trump held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.
The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bow over the 20% VAT rate, though the president’s suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations. Nonetheless, tariffs of 10% could directly reduce UK GDP by between 0.01% and 0.06%, according to Capital Economics.
A 25% duty on all car imports from around the world is also being imposed from midnight in the US – 5am on Thursday, UK time.
The UK government had been hoping to negotiate an economic deal with the US in a bid to avoid the tariffs, but to no avail. The government says negotiations will continue.
The Confederation of British Industry said “negotiating stronger trading relationships with all like-minded partners will be foundational to any success”.
The business secretary is expected to make a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, and we are also expecting to hear from the prime minister.