Housing market crisis as home ownership lowest level since 1980s, study warns

The housing market is in crisis as owner occupation rates tumble and house prices and private rents soar, according to a new study.

30 August 2011

Home ownership in England will slump to just 63.8% over the next decade - the lowest level since the mid 1980s - as an entire generation are effectively locked out of the housing market, according to a new study.

Read the Oxford Economics report (Word, opens new window)

Huge deposits, combined with high house prices and strict lending criteria, have sent home ownership into decline in recent years and the downward trend will continue for the foreseeable future, the National Housing Federation’s independently-commissioned forecasts predict.

The Federation warned the housing market will be plunged into an unprecedented crisis as it forecast steep rises in the private rental sector, huge social housing waiting lists, and a house price boom – all fuelled by a chronic under-supply of homes.

In England, the proportion of people living in owner occupied homes will fall from a peak of 72.5% in 2001 to 63.8% in 2021.
In London, the majority of people living in the capital will rent by 2021 with the number of owner occupiers falling from 51.6% in 2010 to 44% by 2021.
The North East will be the only English region to see any increase in owner occupier numbers over the next decade, rising marginally from 66.2% to 67.4%.
The average house price in England will meanwhile rise by 21.3% over the next five years from £214,647 in 2011, to £260,304 in 2016, according to Oxford Economics, who were commissioned to produce the forecasts.

At the heart of the problem remains a chronic under-supply of new homes. In 2010/11 just 105,000 homes were built in England – the lowest level since the 1920s.

More government investment in affordable housing would stimulate a wider, faster economic recovery and help fix our broken housing markets, according to the Federation.

It is calling for suitable surplus public land to be made available for the building of affordable homes, for local authorities to regularly assess housing need and for ministers to make a renewed commitment to building the homes the country needs.