7 Apr 2015

Generation rent: ‘I’ll never own a house’

Will young adults in ‘generation rent’ ever be able to own their own home? The dream seems harder to grasp than ever.

It seems a growing number of adults believe they will never own their own home due to house prices increasing faster than real wages and demand heavily outstripping supply.

Today, new figures from the Halifax found that the number of adults under 45-years-old saving for a deposit has fallen by 6 per cent.

The findings pile on the bad news, after government figures released this year showed that the number of 25 to 34-year-olds privately renting has more than doubled in a decade, rising from 21 per cent to 48 per cent.

Over the same period the number of people aged 25-34 buying homes with a mortgage fell from 55.6 per cent to 33.7 per cent.

These days, more than a quarter of adults under 30 are still living in the family home, with almost three quarters of home owners aged 45 or over.

For many, private renting – rather than home ownership – has become the new normal, with 9 million people, including more than a million families with children, now renting their homes. Of the 9 million, half are under 35.

Five members of generation rent talked to Channel 4 News about their housing hopes.