Despite the credit crunch, and the knocks to consumer confidence of the past few years, more people than ever before want to be home-owners in the long term. This is one of the many findings of a consumer opinion survey undertaken by YouGov for the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).
85 per cent of people cited home-ownership as the tenure they hoped to be living in a decade from now, suggesting that the home-ownership aspiration remains firmly rooted in the British psyche. The CML has asked the same questions about home-ownership aspirations periodically since 1975. Last time the survey was undertaken, in 2007, the proportion who expected to be home-owners in ten years’ time was 84 per cent.
Over the short term, the desire for home-ownership has dipped a little. 76 per cent of those surveyed saw home-ownership as their ideal tenure in two years’ time – down from 78 per cent last time the survey was undertaken in 2007. This primarily reflects a much lower short-term appetite (42 per cent) for home-ownership among adults aged 18 to 24 – although this is also the age group with the highest ten-year home-ownership aspirations (88 per cent).
It is highly likely that this reflects younger people’s lifestyle choices, favouring more flexibility and mobility in the short term, as well as a realistic assessment of the difficulty of entering the housing market under current affordability conditions.
CML director general Michael Coogan, comments:
“It is crystal clear that most people see home-ownership as their tenure of choice over the long term. But the unintended consequence of regulatory change is that it is going to be permanently tougher for people – especially young people – to fulfil that aspiration in the future, even if they are responsible with their finances.
“Home-ownership levels are already falling, and they will continue to fall. Is that the outcome that policymakers want? It is certainly not what consumers want, but it’s what they’re likely to end up with. We urge politicians and regulators to pause and think again about the cumulative effects of their well-intentioned but poorly targeted package of regulatory changes”.
