For objective prospects, results are similar. People who would go on to still be a non-homeowner had considerably different preferences to homeowners in 2018: higher support for Labour and lower support for the Conservatives - with and without controls
Similar to the subjective analysis, future homeowners have the same preferences to current homeowners with controls.
Combining the two shows that the minimum likelihood of future ownership (thinking you won’t buy and not doing so) shows higher support for Labour and lower support for the Conservatives
The subjective question was asked again in May 2022 and 2023 - both after (to put it mildly) some stuff happened in the UK housing market since the question was first asked. This means I can test whether the mechanism remains even after this and Lab/Con leader and policy changes
In both waves as before, those that think they won’t be able to buy have significantly higher support for Labour and significantly lower support for the Conservatives. Those who think they will be able to buy again show insignificant differences to homeowners in both w/ controls
In contrast to before, those who think they will be able to buy also have significantly higher support for Labour even with controls in both. This suggests that changed conditions may have led to a changed willingness to consider Labour.
These results give an indication as to why non-homeowners have reduced support for Tories. When housing more affordable, they had more realistic prospect of ownership and results suggest this would have led to similar voting to owners.
Given upward house prices, non-homeowners have a much reduced prospect of homeownership. Therefore, there are now more non-homeowners with a lower – objective/subjective – likelihood of future ownership. This exacerbates the voting divides between homeowners and non-homeowners
Should the Tories build more houses? Results suggest electoral reward to building may be larger than it seems, as party will gain not only among those who become homeowners immediately, but also with non-homeowners who become more confident they will own in the future.
However, increasing homebuilding may lead to negative NIMBY feelings from current (Tory voting) homeowners. This is a massive dilemma where a policy of homebuilding that would likely win new voters could also lose existing voters.