Two ends to the housing ladder: learnings from the English Housing Survey

While much attention will be focused on what the Bank of England do to interest rates later today, at 9.30am this morning the headline results of the English Housing Survey were published. While some of the figures need to be treated with a bit of caution, there are still some useful learnings

While were saw continued modest growth in owner occupation, in 2021-22 that growth was driven by increases in unmortgaged owner-occupiers, namely those who have paid off their mortgage debt.?

By contrast, the recent growth in mortgaged home-ownership - which has been fuelled by schemes such as Help to Buy - has seemingly stalled. This comes at a time, when those looking to get on the housing ladder face much higher mortgage costs and less government support. Even before recent interest rate rises median mortgage payments were up +6% year on year and +18% over 5 years.?

Meanwhile the number of outright owner occupiers over the age of 65 rose by an estimated 146,000 in the year. Standing at just shy of 5.3m households, the number has increased by over half a million in 5 years.

And, at the same time, the number of owner-occupiers under-occupying their home rose to 8.25m; a figure that has increased by 959,000 in 5 years.?

This should serve as a timely reminder that policy makers (and indeed the residential property industry), need to look at what is happening at both end of the housing ladder.