(typo, in my post from last Friday. Should read "pricing things out of reach?")
I think the brutal truth is that, these days, the -profit margin- (*) on a small home is just not attractive to developers. Because of the low wage economy and because of the way banks have had to reign back on salary multipliers, as well as being more rigorous about checking an applicant's income stability, as well as level, the more profitable house layouts which the developers are chomping at the bit to build are outside the range of affordability for those first-time buyers.
Oh, they still shift units, of course - to buy-to-let landlords, way higher on the income scale and busily working on their little property empires.
Now here we get to one of the border fences between Socialism and Capitalism.
Socialists build things because they need to be built. Sort of now-ish. Houses now, schools now, hospitals now and, with a Birmingham-sized city having moved in, lately, sewage treatment works now. *** profitability, just get the job done.
Cr*pitalism, famously, will not even get out of bed for less than £10k (for the day).
Taking this logic to extremes, for humour purposes, the people who work hard all day and tell everybody around them just how hard they work all day and pay their taxes and moan about it being handed to benefit claimants are getting the job done and thus are socialists. The claimants are the capitalists, just waiting on the right price for their services.
(*) feel free to argue the toss over this bit. It is a received opinion which I am merely parroting.