Analysis from the Home Builders Federation (HBF) - the representative body of the home building industry in England and Wales - has found England lags international standards on several fronts.

As well as being unaffordable and too old, England has a dearth of housing, with the lowest rates of available properties compared to its population of all OECD members.

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The key findings of the report include:

• Existing English homes are in the worst condition of all European countries, with 15% failing required quality standards - significantly worse than poorer Eastern European nations
• Skyrocketing housing costs mean 11.3 million people in England spend more than 40% on their household income on their home - more than any other country in Europe
• England has a dearth of housing, with the lowest rates of available properties compared to its population of all OECD members

HBF said a scarcity of available properties and barriers to building is driving UK housing further into crisis, and a record level of housebuilding would be needed each year for England to be on par with international standards by 2030.

Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of the Home Builders Federation, said: "It is widely acknowledged that Britain's housing is in crisis, but this research shows just how badly we are falling behind our international peers.

"Decades of housing undersupply has produced startling consequences for people up and down the country looking for a decent home."

HBF used data collated from the OECD, the European Union, and the UK government to produce their findings.

It found that while boosting home ownership has been a key ambition for politicians across the divide, this is becoming increasingly unachievable for many as house prices continue to outstrip incomes.

Unaffordability

Between 2004 and 2021 the UK's rate of home ownership fell by 6% from 71% to 65%. Over the same period, levels of home ownership grew by nearly 10% in France and by 15% in the Netherlands.

The report said in the UK the average price of a property is more than seven times the average salary, making it one of the most expensive places to buy and rent, and resulting in more people in England being overburdened with housing costs than anywhere else in Europe.

Even when looking at countries with similar reputations for unaffordable housing, the UK compares poorly, the analysis found.

In Denmark, which has one of the world's most expensive and competitive property markets, there has been a rapid growth of 12% in the house price to income ratio between 2004 and 2021.

However, this pales in comparison to England and Wales, where the ratio has grown by 37% over the same period.

Despite homes being some of the most expensive, they are also poorest in quality.

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Homes too old

Part of the reason is that the UK has some of the oldest housing stock in the developed world with just 7% of British homes built after 2001, compared to 18.5% in Spain and 16% in Portugal.

In Hungary, with one of the lowest average annual incomes in Europe and a GDP 17 times smaller than the UK, houses are much more modern: Half of Hungarian homes were built after 1971, compared to only a third of the UK's housing stock.

The report said this was a "significant factor" as to why conditions in English homes were also poorer than European neighbours.

As of 2020, England had the highest proportion of inadequate housing in Europe, with 15% of all homes not meeting the Decent Homes Standard, a measure set by the government which requires homes to be in a reasonable state of repair with reasonably modern facilities and services.

By comparison, in poorer nations like Lithuania 11% of homes are substandard while in Poland only 6% do not reach the required standard.

'Wakeup call to politicians'

The analysis also looked at housing stock, and found the long-term undersupply of new housing means that England still falls significantly behind European neighbours in terms of the number of homes per thousand people in the population, with 434 homes per thousand inhabitants, significantly fewer than France (590), Italy (587) and the OECD average of 487.

The HBF has said that 320,000 homes would need to be built every year until 2030 to bring the UK in line with that average.

This would require a record amount of housebuilding. The Conservative's 2019 manifesto target was to build 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s but a report by MPs published over summer said it is difficult to see how that will be achieved, with around 233,000 new homes supplied in 2021/22.

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Mr Baseley said the report should be a "wake-up call" to politicians ahead of the next general election, in which housebuilding looks set to be a major battleground.

Despite opposition from some Tories to building, ministers have recently proposed relaxing rules on waterway pollution in bid to increase the number of homes, while Labour has vowed to reform laws around the green belt.

Mr Baseley said: "Home builders, want to be able to deliver new, high quality, energy efficient homes which will help solve our country's housing crisis, and they expanded investment over the past decade. Sadly, developers are still too often hampered by a restrictive planning system, an anti-development mindset and short-term politics trumping the needs of communities.

"The country is in dire need of more high quality and energy efficient new homes. With an election looming and manifestos being considered, today's research should act as a wake-up call, demonstrating the urgent need to act now to prevent us falling even further behind."