Young Brits half as likely to own a home as the 1960s generation
Key Points
- Home ownership among households headed by someone aged 19-29 fell by half between 1989 and 2023, from 23% to 11%.
- 47% of those born 1961-65 owned a home by age 28, compared with 27% of those born in the early 1990s.
- The share of over-65s who own their home rose from 34% in the early 1960s to 76% in 2023.
- Around a third of recent first-time buyers received help from parents, about 20 percentage points more than two decades ago.
- The Resolution Foundation called for more housebuilding and a Starter Deposit scheme offering a loan worth 5% of an entry-level home's price.
Young people in Britain are half as likely to own their own home as the generation that came of age in the 1960s, according to new analysis from the Resolution Foundation.
The think tank found that the share of households headed by someone aged 19 to 29 who owned their home fell by half between 1989 and 2023, dropping from 23% to 11%. The figure had fallen as low as 8% in 2013 before a modest recovery.
The decline is starkest when measured across the generations. The Resolution Foundation found that 47% of people born between 1961 and 1965 owned a home by the age of 28.
For those born two decades later, the figure was just 22%, edging up to 27% for those born in the early 1990s – a fall of 20 percentage points over three decades.
At the other end of the age range, ownership has surged. In 2023, the share of those aged 65 and over who owned their home stood at 76% , more than double the 34% recorded in the early 1960s.
On a positive note, the analysis found early signs of improvement among younger millennials. Those born between 1991 and 1995 are owning homes slightly faster than the cohort a decade older, outpacing them by five percentage points at age 28.
The Resolution Foundation cautioned that the gains were modest and that it remained too early to declare a lasting recovery.
The report found that access to home ownership is increasingly shaped by parental wealth rather than personal earnings. Young adults who grew up in rented accommodation are now less than half as likely to own a home as their peers, a gap the think tank said had been widening.
Around a third of recent first-time buyers received help from the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad, roughly 20 percentage points more than two decades ago. The Resolution Foundation found the pattern held across the income distribution, with a third of buyers in every income group receiving parental support.
The think tank called on the Government to build more homes, particularly affordable ones, and to strengthen renters’ rights and support through the Local Housing Allowance.
It also restated its proposal for a Starter Deposit scheme, which would offer a loan worth 5% of the price of an entry-level home for a small family in the buyer’s region.
The think tank said the biggest barrier to home ownership remained the deposit, and warned that the chance of owning a home was becoming tied to coming from a family with wealth.
