Young people in UK increasingly giving up on owning a home

A survey carried out by Halifax on attitudes to getting on the property ladder shows that increasing number of young people in the UK is giving up on owning a home. 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.

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”.

“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.

A spokesman for housing charity Shelter said that even with interest rates at historic lows, “sky-high house prices mean millions are still locked out of homeownership”.

The Halifax report follows a series of embarrassing figures for the chancellor, George Osborne, and business secretary, Vince Cable, who have spearheaded the government’s campaign to stimulate house building by boosting demand.

The report gathered information from more than 40,000 20- to 45-year-olds and 4,000 parents with children aged between 20 and 45.