Wow! That's quite some reaction to the suggestion you live as many many other families do!
"Where will I put all my stuff then?!"
Quite possibly one of the most tone deaf, entitled, ivory tower comments I've seen on mn for some time!
Highly unlikely you work particularly harder than many in lower paid even nmw jobs, are they less deserving of a secure comfortable home?
The land your home is on I'm fairly sure could potentially actually be utilised to house several families if it were demolished and flats were built on it - I didn't go that far!
You don't need a 4 bed home for 2 people you just don't! It's ridiculous! It's a waste of space and as other pps (more knowledgable than I on this) that's an environmental as well as moral waste too.
As a species those of us in wealthier countries need to stop focusing on and treating wants as needs to the detriment of all of us.
I only need a studio with a shower room and a small kitchen space. I'd be perfectly willing and happy to live in such a set up, I have searched in vain for one suitable for me and am blocked mainly by age - many of these type of properties are reserved either for students or people over 55 and there aren't many of them available at all. I'm making an educated guess that the reason is because they're not particularly profitable! I haven't even only looked in one area! I have looked across the whole country because I am able and willing to move and having been a forces dependent for many years I have friends and relatives all over the country so I'm also in the fortunate position that I would have someone I knew nearby pretty much in any county.
A pp mentioned that divorce was a factor in the housing crisis, I'm guessing perhaps they mean as in 2 parents where a child is occupying a bedroom in each home, but it's also because people are unwilling to allow children even if very young and the same sex to share rooms even when a child is present on a temporary basis.
I have many happy memories of sharing bedrooms with siblings and cousins and friends and visitors. Yes there are annoyances too but that is part of life.
People now seem completely focused on the down sides of such arrangements and often oblivious to the pluses.
It beats me why someone would boast about their “show home” on a thread where the theme is the injustice inherent in our housing system.
Pretty odd isn't it?
I've been homeless, I've been extremely grateful to have the most basic accommodation, the best housing I was in was when overseas with my ex and living in accommodation that was being "lent" to the armed forces but which was built and originally intended as social housing for the civilian communities where we were living at that time, in countries where at the time of building these properties the perception was very much that they were a far worse off country and people than we in the Uk yet I can assure you these were spacious, well designed and comfortable homes when I was living in them 40 odd years after they were built!
I think the British need also to learn not to trust or automatically believe what they are told about how life is in other countries. Much of what we are told is total nonsense!
There have been some very interesting threads on here in recent times where some of the assumptions even myths about life, including the quality of housing, taxation etc in other countries has been corrected.
We need to be much more curious, less naive and more open to ideas from other countries who ARE doing things better than we are (I would argue this isn't bloody difficult at the moment but many would disagree I know)
If the political will were present we COULD build/develop much more and good quality social housing, this would likely in time reduce private market prices without necessarily putting owners into negative equity, we could build not just housing but communities, infrastructure, a country we could genuinely be proud of!
But while we are governed (by all parties) by people who won't vote against their own self interest and that of their close families because they are land and property owners, developers and landlords we cannot hope to achieve this.
We need representatives who actually care about ordinary people who are working very hard in low paid jobs, who are providing services we ALL need, who are part of our society and have as much value as the rich.
While we continue to elect MPs who were almost all privately educated, went to elite universities and "studied" ppe and similar, who then went to work at 'daddy's friends PR firm for a bit' And then went into similarly connected roles at Westminster and then stood as MP candidates without at ANY time gaining ANY real experience of the policies enacted that affect ordinary people, who wouldn't be able to tell you the price of a pint of milk or loaf of bread we won't get anywhere with addressing the inequalities in our society that negatively affect ALL of us (perhaps barring the top stream of the upper classes to which many of these MPs belong!).
It's plain criminal that in a wealthy country we have families living in shipping containers, disabled people dying in street doorways, children going hungry on a continuing basis, diseases caused by malnourishment rising, unicef stepping in to feed our children...
So yes I do find it ridiculous and offensive that a couple think it necessary and acceptable to live in a large 4 bed property when they have no need of it.