Queen's reign saw house price boom

Queen Elizabeth came to the throne when the average home cost just £2,200 and nearly two thirds of households did not have a hot water supply.

A trebling in house prices in real terms, major shifts in British lifestyle and a growing north-south divide characterise the 60 years since her ascension, according to new research.

Most of her reign has been marked by the cycle of housing market boom and bust over the last 40 years, though her monarchy began with a 10-year fall in house prices of 7% caused by a surge in public sector home construction, Halifax said.

While the 1980s saw the greatest rise in real house prices of 42%, the cost of homes peaked in proportion to earnings in 2007, at 5.8 times the gross average salary, compared with the 60-year average ratio of 3.9.

Queen Elizabeth also reigns over an increasingly divided realm as the difference in average house price between the north and the south increased from 42% in 1971 to 64% last year.

While London recorded the greatest swell in house prices over the last 40 years at 189%, Scotland, with the least growth, saw an increase of less than half that at 91%. The only northern region to record above-average growth was Yorkshire and the Humber at 159%.

Fifteen million new homes have been built under Elizabeth's sovereignty, though construction has fallen since the public sector housing drive of the 1950s and 60s. And since the 1970s, the total number of houses built has been in steady decline from 364,470 in 1971 to an estimated 136,945 in 2011.

Home ownership stood at 32% of households in Elizabeth's coronation year. This has more than doubled to 66% although it has seen a steady fall since peaking at 71% in 2003. At the same time, while half of households rented their home in the 1950s, this plummeted to 10% in 2001, picking up again during the 2000s to 17% last year.

Elizabeth has also presided over an era of seismic social change - married couples made up 40% of all households in 2011, falling from 70% in 1971. Co-habitation was rare in the 1971, accounting for only 1% of households, whereas in 2011 unmarried couples made up 12% of all homes.

Living alone is projected to overtake married households as the most common type over the next 10 years.