Is it someone's right to own their own home?

A difficult question to answer but surely one to which more and more people would answer in the affirmative, writes David Lawrenson.

But go back to 1950 when about half of people rented or even as far back as 1900 when around 90% of people rented and I guess if you posed the same question you would get a very different response.

Many people back then would not even have dreamed of owning their own home and would have been surprised by the question.

Of course, in reality many people don't really own their own homes, their mortgage lender does - the individual just owns whatever their share of the equity is.