Borrow For Britain

The British economy has come to depend on people like 26-year-old Rebecca Holyhead. She and her boyfriend Dave are about to put down the deposit on their first house. It may not sound like much — a two-bedroom semi-detached that used to be public housing, on the outer fringe of London and far from the Tube — but it's costing them a heady 150,000, more than three times their combined annual salaries. (She's a nuclear safety engineer; he works in local government. Their parents are pitching in on the deposit.) Though it's a bit of a financial squeeze, Holyhead isn't complaining....

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