It’s a miserable sign of the times. On the tube the other day, this correspondent on Twitter noticed an ad encouraging home owners with spare rooms to put them on the market for £800 to “ward off rising living costs” and “help ease the housing crisis”.
Or take this one. For a good few years now, students’ unions have been running campaigns encouraging students not to sign on the line for a house share too early. That’s partly because landlords and their agents prey on scarcity fears to lock people in – so taking time means students both are able to look at the property and letting agreement properly.
And it’s partly because lots of things can happen to friendships, academic progression and academic choices between the November, December, January or February when they are pressured into signing and the start of the next academic year.
