Britain’s housing supply is constrained, and prices are so high, that the number of people able to afford their own home, especially the younger generation, is dwindling.
According to data from the National Housing Federation cited by The Times newspaper, there are 1.5 million UK homeowners aged 85 and over and they “own more of the nation’s housing wealth than everybody under 35.”
It seems that many young people will have to wait a little while longer to get on the housing ladder.
The older generation were lucky enough to live in a time of cheaper property. Latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows that house prices rose to £217,000 in July 2016, from around £150,000 in 2005
Here’s the chart:
Or, of course, the younger generation could hope for a massive pay rise over the next few years, but this looks highly unlikely considering wages across Britain, as well as the rest of Europe are either stagnant or falling.
The NHF published a few startling stats that demonstrate just how skewed the UK housing market has become and how difficult it is for a young person to own their own home without the help of a family member:
- Home ownership levels are now at 64%, down from 71% in 2003. The average age of first-time buyers is now 33, up from 30 two decades ago. The average number of first-time buyers is falling, from 300,000 to 564,000 between 1995 and 2015. Only 37% of 25 to 34-year-olds are homeowners, a fall from 59% in 2004.
But it does not look like the situation is going to get better any time soon. NHF says that Britain needs to build 250,000 new homes a year in order to sate demand and therefore stop runaway house prices, but only around half this amount is being constructed.