The drought is making it incredibly difficult for young families to get on or move up the property ladder in some areas.
Analysis of latest official figures shows that 9% of all new private properties completed in 2017/18 were two-bedroom houses and this has collapsed from 17% two decades ago.
Since the data was first collected, two-bedroom houses peaked at 23% of all new build homes in 1992/93 and 1993/94 and they have not risen above 10% since 2012/13.
Further analysis of new-build houses currently on the market with online portal Zoopla2 shows that two-bedroom houses make up as little as 2 to 3% of the houses on the market in some areas. In Durham, Cambridge, Stafford, Nottingham, Crawley and Birmingham, more than 97% of new-build houses for sale have three or more bedrooms. (Scroll down for the full table).
Worse still, in Blackburn, Bolton, Darlington, Gateshead and Gosport, have no new-build two-bedroom houses for sale at all. Other places suffering the two-up, two-down drought with no new-build two-bedroom houses on the market are Hastings, Rochdale, Slough, Stevenage, Wigan and Worcester.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s completion data shows houses made up 80% of new build properties in 2017/18, with flats making up the rest.
Joseph Daniels, CEO of Project Etopia, commented: “The two-up, two-down was once thought of as the typical first house for aspiring home owners, giving people a step onto the ladder where they have space to start building a family.
“But couples are inevitably finding it increasingly difficult to buy smaller two-bedroom homes because developers have simply stopped building enough of them.
“Decades of inadequate home building has already left hundreds of thousands of people unable to afford to buy a place of their own. Developers need to remember they’re building for people, not just profit.”
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