Promoting home ownership

The assumption that every family will one day become a home-owner is unrealistic. Recent experience in several developed countries suggests that universal owner-occupation is an unobtainable goal. In the USA, for example, access to home ownership became more difficult during the 1980s. In Britain, ownership is currently (1996) in decline, and most mortgage lenders have been repossessing the homes of young and/or newly unemployed households unable to service their loans.