Why are Brits so obsessed with buying their own homes?

Scotland does: https://www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk

It makes sense to buy a house because, over the long term, the value of houses goes up while the value of money goes down.

Even better, the real cost of mortgage payments keeps going down (thanks to inflation) while the real cost of rents keeps rising. My house would now rent for around 3x my mortgage payments, except I paid off the mortgage more than a decade ago so my rent is zero.

There's always a chance house prices could collapse, but that's unlikely in the UK. First, it's a small island with a rising population so there is real demand, mainly in the south of England.

Second, it's seen as a "safe haven" so foreigners are buying houses in the UK -- new developments are actively marketed in China, Singapore etc.

Third, if you buy a house and rent part or all of it out, the tenants will pay the mortgage for you, and they really have no choice. Governments supporting a "property-owning democracy" (a Conservative Party ideal) have made it harder to rent by selling off social housing, removing rent controls, giving tax allowances on mortgages etc.

Historically, on average, buying a house has been a one-way bet in the UK for around 50 years. It seems pretty much insane to imagine that this will always be true, but it has been true for my entire lifetime.

The UK has historically been a society where the poor majority worked the land and rented from a few wealthy landowners. [0]

This builds a psyche whereby to own land becomes a social status.

Bring into that heady mix the likes of Maggie Thatcher's "right to buy" [1] scheme, whereby the lesser class (council house residents) are in a position to buy their homes at a fraction of their apparent worth, and suddenly you need to own your house or be seen to be less than those that do.

Then a new generation comes along and sees that their parents "foolishly" sold off a couple of houses years ago that would now have been worth a mint, and everyone must buy a house else be caught out like their parents.

Buy to let then brings in the mentality of "why would you give money to someone else to pay off their mortgage when you could be paying off your own?" and everyone must buy as early as possible.

Pure conjecture on my part.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure_of_the_United...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Buy

I recently bought a flat - my only real debt is the mortgage. There is a psychological shift - I was in London for 7 years and thought I'd rent forever. But it bugged me to be pissing away 1300 a month to a landlord... and it was never big enough. And London is its own headache. The shift for me at least has to do with 'settling down'.

I bought this current flat (outside of London) primarily as an investment (gentrification is already happening here) and so the much lower "rent"/mortgage (than even renting in this city) is an upside. I wish I'd bought in King's Cross 10 years ago, but that's how life goes.

But I do get the social pressure to "own". Under 30s these days are screwed. I always thought London was overpriced, but it kept going up and up and up... At some point, the bubble will burst, but the Tories don't care about the future for anyone but themselves at all.

As an aside, my friend just finished off his <$100 quid a month mortgage he got in the 80s and his two up-two down is easily worth 200K now. I think he paid like 50K overall?