Why can't you afford a home?

While wages and incomes continue to stagnate for the majority, house prices and rents remain staggeringly high.

For millions of people, particularly millennials, the basic goal of acquiring decent, affordable accommodation is a distant dream.

In this book, economist Josh-Ryan Collins argues that to understand this crisis, we must examine a crucial paradox at the heart of modern capitalism.

Two of the key ingredients of contemporary capitalist societies, private home ownership and a lightly regulated commercial banking system, are not mutually compatible.

Their interaction leads to a 'doom loop' in which unlimited credit and money flows into an inherently finite supply of viable property, resulting in ever higher house prices.

The result is declining levels of home ownership, rising inequality and debt, stagnant growth and financial instability.