Home ownership has halved for young families in parts of the UK

Home ownership has halved for young families across some parts of the UK according to a charity. 

The Resolution Foundation says its new research counters the popular perception that the struggle to get on the housing ladder is largely confined to London and the south east. 

While outer London has seen a big drop in home ownership for young families aged 25 to 34 (falling by 63 per cent between 1994 and 2016), there have also been major falls in West Yorkshire (down 52 per cent) and Greater Manchester (down 51 per cent).

Big falls were also recorded in many other areas of south east England including Brighton, Southampton, Reading and Milton Keynes (all down 46 per cent in the same time period), along with Merseyside (down 44 per cent), East Anglia (also down 44 per cent) and the south west including Bristol (a fall of 43 per cent). 

The foundation argues that such a shift in home ownership puts the current younger generation in a very different position from that of the baby boomers currently leaving the workforce at retirement age. 

It claims that these stark falls, along with a decline in social housing, mean that many more young families are now living in the private rented sector.

The foundation argues that while ambitious house building targets set by major political parties in their General Election manifestos are encouraging, there is little information provided on how such plans will be achieved. 

It says that housing stock in England rose by less than 200,000 units in 2015/16, and claims more concrete plans are required before voters can be confident that the next government will reach these ambitious targets.

“From Bristol to East Anglia and up to West Yorkshire, large swathes of young families across the country simply cannot afford to buy their own home. This has implications for their living standards in the here and now, but also in the future when their children grow up and they approach retirement without this key asset to draw upon in old age” explains Lindsay Judge, senior policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation.