Obvious examples of this are the trend towards young adults staying in the parental home longer, and a rise in the number of people sharing accommodation. Interestingly, the relatively slow growth in the number of dwellings does not reflect historically low levels of dwelling investment.
In fact, the share of GDP devoted to the construction of  6  BIS Review 27/2010  dwellings over recent years is above the average of the past five decades (Graph 7). However, within total dwelling investment, renovation activity now accounts for a higher share than was the case historically, and the average size and quality of new dwellings has also increased substantially.