More young people living at home - must be the usual suspects (NIMBYs) but what is the real cause?

The danger of journalists commenting on policy areas outside their areas of expertise is that they often draw the wrong conclusions from a cursory glance at data. The latest example is of Gaby Hinsliff in the 'Guardian' referring to the rise in young adults living at home with parents in the 2021 census and concluding "yet Britain is failing to build – quite literally – on what should be a source of instinctive sympathy for the young and priced-out."

The article falls back as usual on the old argument that supply is too low and therefore prices are too high, with the usual finger wagging at so called NIMBYs. A seemingly plausible yet simplistic comment. So what factors explain the rise in young people at home?

As various research work has shown, house building exceeds household formation, there is a surplus of housing. High house prices can be attributed largely to the recent long period of low interest rates which have the effect of pushing up asset values particularly housing.

Cuts in benefits have made it more difficult for young people to afford rents, and in 2012 a change to housing benefit rules was introduced that prevented single people under 35 claiming for a house of their own. [See https://twitter.com/ianmulheirn/status/1623971584074567682]. Potential house purchasers were affected after the changes in the mortgage market following the Great Financial Crash, resulted in restrictions on borrowing, again with negative impacts on young people, A more financially insecure workforce, particularly in younger age groups impacts on the ability to rent or buy.

So we have various causal factors resulting in more young adults staying in the family home. Resolving these would make it easier for people to find their own accommodation.