Young people in UK increasingly giving up on owning a home – Halifax survey
More grist to the evidence mill of something that is at its most iniquitous in rural areas. This story tells us:
Rocketing house prices and years without real-terms wages growth have prompted a growing number of younger people to give up the idea of ever owning their own home, according to a major report on attitudes to getting on the property ladder.
The proportion of people aged between 20 and 45 putting money aside for a deposit had been steady for three years but fell last year by six percentage points to 43%, according to the Generation Rent report from the bank Halifax.
In a blow to government hopes that its help-to-buy mortgage subsidy scheme had turned around attitudes, the lender said its report strengthens the view that more people may be abandoning the dream of home ownership and accepting the idea of long-term renting. It suggested lower levels of ownership may become “the new normal”.
The separate campaign group, also called Generation Rent, blamed the fall in deposit saving on a 20% rise in house prices over the last two years.
“This wouldn’t be a problem if renting was a legitimate alternative to home ownership, but it is expensive, insecure and often of poor quality,” a spokesperson said.