"They got rid of our oak doors!" - the story of Britain's obsession with national ownership in a housing chain

The first link in the chain was forged when Alf Thompson, an elderly widower, felt out of breath. It was October 2021 and a district nurse was visiting Alf at his home in a cul-de-sac in Shepshed, Leicestershire. Paramedics and family members were called. Alf's daughter, Emma Lowe, 51, arrived just in time to follow the ambulance to a hospital in Loughborough, around five miles east across the M1. Alf did not say goodbye to the house he had lived in for 35 years - its rooms covered in shag carpets, a beloved portrait of HMS Warrior above the fireplace - because, on that day of autumn, it did not look like a definitive departure.

In Britain, around 350,000 homes are for sale at any one time. Between 1.2m and 1.5m are traded each year. The country is dense, invisibly criss-crossed by chains of sellers and buyers, some eager to move, others shuffling; some rich, some very uptight - all bound by half-done deals, waiting for a conclusive word from an agent or lawyer before their hands can close on an unknown set of keys.

Ever since the Covid pandemic briefly froze and then adrenalized the UK property market, the industry headlines have been giddy. “UK home buying in 2021 is set to be the busiest since 2006,” this newspaper blew up last December, around the time Alf Thompson, who has now quit his hospital bed in Loughborough, took up residence in a nursing home in Shepshed. He was too sick to go back to the cul-de-sac.

Bean counting and pomposity tends to obscure the human realities that underpin our housing market, those billions of cases of health issues, ambition growing, deepening romance or plummeting personal contentment that fuel frantic commerce. Buying a home, for those who are lucky enough to be able to do so, is a big life event, and one that was most likely prompted by a larger life event, be it a get a promotion, lose a job, grow a family, or mourn a loved one. When Alf Thompson died in December 2021, he had already planned to sell his house to cover the cost of his care. Now her daughter Emma had to juggle her grief and funeral arrangements with a decision on what to do with the house.

She spoke to family members . She contacted a few real estate agents. It was agreed that they would go ahead with Alf's plans and put the family home up for sale, with Emma as the seller. When it hit the market in January, Emma became the next link in a housing chain – only selling, not buying, and as such waiting for other people in different circumstances to come along. come together in a chord sequence below it. There were countless other home chains bustling around the UK that month, but here's the story of one.

Not saving for a house. But looking back, I'm glad I did. At 19, Liam was working at a Shepshed care home when he met two-year-old Alysia his youngest, who had taken a job making sandwiches for the residents. She remembered him telling her he had enough money set aside for a mortgage deposit. Who says that, at 19? A few years the couple later bought their first home together.

They got married, started their families and began a steady climb through ever-growing Shepshed properties expensive, taking better paying and time-consuming jobs in the NHS to cover their ever-larger mortgage repayments. By the late 2010s, Liam was working nights and days in nursing. Alysia had two jobs: as an administrator health worker and teaching assistant. in a spacious four bedroom house backing onto a huge grassy park in Shepshed. You could have put the Capes in an advert, emblematic of Britain's beloved image of itself as a place full of sensible, frugal and happy owners. Except for one thing. The Capes weren't sure if they would be happy.

In order to keep up to date with childcare and their work and the monthly mortgage payment...