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- Who's to blame for the Housing Crisis? The change in home owners
Who's to blame for the Housing Crisis? The change in home owners
#2 Why your adult kids still live with you
mssng is on a mission to tackle tough questions and spark new insights through the power of data. Our blog dives into the heart of the issues — some of those big topics that fuel debate, make headlines, shape policies, or change behaviours. We go to the source, uncovering the data to bring you clear, meaningful context. We hope these insights make your inbox a little more interesting, and if you have a challenge that could use a data-driven edge, we’d love to hear from you.
The UK has a housing crisis, consistently failing to build enough new stock in line with government targets since the turn of the century. Home ownership may have been the post-war dream, but it’s a dream that has become increasingly difficult to achieve.
In 2023, there were just over 24 million households in England [1]. Rising house prices and the increasing challenge of affordability has seen the profile of tenure (that is ‘how many people live in what type of dwelling’) continue to shift – but in the wrong direction…
The total percentage of owner-occupiers in England has not improved over the last 20+ years, dropping significantly from nearly 71% in 2003 to below 65% in 2023. That period also saw a drop in people using social housing (from 18% to 16%).
The big rise is in private renters, from just under 11% to nearly 19%. These are the people who, for the most part, cannot afford to buy yet.
There were 1.3 million fewer homes owned with a mortgage in 2023, versus 2003 [2]. The average deposit size required for a first-time buyer has more than doubled, from £23,448 in 2002, to £53,414 in 2023 [3].
see note [4]
The rise in prices and relative affordability, coupled with the lack of financial incentives to downsize later in life, means the average home-owner is now much older. The only age segment that is actually growing is the 65+ group…
… which also means the average homeowner is living in an increasingly empty house. Nearly 8.7 million owner-occupied dwellings in England have empty bedrooms - that’s 36% of all homes. In the mid-1990s, it was only 5.3 million (27%) [5].
In spite of this, in 2023, 59% of private renters (2.6 million households) and 25% of social renters (1 million households) said they still expected to buy a property at some point in the future [6]. So, the dream remains alive for many, but possibly because the rental market is close to breaking point - read on here.
notes & sources
More precisely it was 24,408,000 rounded to the nearest thousand and includes owner-occupied, private rental and social rental. English Housing Survey, Dec 2023
Report by UK Housing Review, University of York, 2003-04 & Halifax (Lloyds Banking Group), 2024. Real-terms wage growth in that period calculated at 3.5%, IFS report, May 2024.
Office of National Statistics, Milestones: journeying through modern life, April, 2024, and English Housing Survey, Dec 2023
9.8 million all homes in the UK (40% of total, across all types of tenure) now have more bedrooms than occupant (vs 6.2m, 1996). The same trend can be seen for private renters. By contrast, social renters are more likely to be in overcrowded accommodation.. English Housing Survey, Dec 2023
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