No Way Home? Restoring Britain's housing ladder
Public First
Yorkshire Building Society has today published a new report, No Way Home? Restoring Britain's housing ladder, with polling and economic modelling by Public First. It assesses the state of the UK housing ladder and finds that, while home ownership remains a near-universal aspiration, the ladder has become both harder to step onto and harder to climb.
Drawing on new polling of 4,008 GB adults and bespoke economic modelling, the report finds a market that is jammed at every rung, with consequences felt right across it:
- 88% of UK adults say home ownership is important, yet only 11% of renters aged 20 to 44 are currently in a position to buy in England, falling to just 5% in London.
- Home ownership has fallen from around 70% of households in the early 2000s to just under 65% today, while annual transactions have fallen from 1.5 to 1.8 million a year in the early 2000s to around 1 to 1.2 million.
- By retirement, homeowners are on average six times wealthier than renters, a gap of £793,000 in today's terms, set to widen to as much as £2.6 million by end of life for today's 30 to 40-year-olds.
- The ladder is jammed at every stage, from renters who cannot save to older households who cannot find suitable homes to downsize into.
- Credit history is an under-recognised barrier: among renters who do not expect to buy, 26% believe their credit record alone would prevent them from borrowing.
- Each home sale generates around £27,000 in economic activity, rising to about £66,000 once linked moves in a housing chain are counted.
- On current transaction forecasts, housing sales are projected to contribute around £157 billion in economic activity and £80 billion in tax revenue over the next five years, value that a more mobile, functioning market helps sustain.
No Way Home? Restoring Britain's housing ladder is by Yorkshire Building Society, with polling and economic modelling by Public First.