Lifestyle in Britain. Дворжец О.С. - 19 стр.

                  READING AND SPEAKING
3.1     The graph below shows how home-ownership has increased in the second half
of the twentieth century. Talk about the modern developments in owning and renting
houses using the graph and the profiles below.


                                Owner – occupied
                                Rented from local authority
                                Rented from housing associations, privately, or
                            with a job or business


                                 The desire to own the place where you live is al-
                            most universal in Britain, however, house prices are
                            high. This dilemma is overcome by the mortgage sys-
                            tem, which is probably a more established aspect of
everyday life here than it is anywhere else in the world. About 70% of all the
houses in the country are occupied by their owners and almost all of these were
bought with a mortgage. At any one time, half of these are owned by people who
have borrowed 80% (or even more) of their price and are now paying this money
back month by month. The normal arrangement is for the borrower to pay back the
money over a period of twenty to twenty-five years but it can be longer, especially
since house prices are continuing to rise.
      People are happy to take out mortgages because house prices normally in-
crease a bit faster than the general cost of living. Therefore, most people can make
a profit when they sell their house.
      Although nearly everybody wants to own his house, it is only in the last quar-
ter of the twentieth century that a majority of people have done so. Before that
time, most working-class people lived in rented accommodation. From 1950 to
1980 the proportion of ‘owner-occupiers’ gradually increased. The ambition to
own was made easier by policies of ‘tax-relief’…


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