Home Ownership 'At 30-Year Low In England'

Home ownership has fallen to its lowest level for 30 years in England, with northern cities feeling some of the greatest pain from rising prices, new analysis shows.

The Resolution Foundation found London was far from alone in suffering from an affordability crisis.

The think-tank pointed to double-digit falls in ownership across Leeds, Sheffield and in Greater Manchester, where it said ownership levels had sunk the most, falling 14.5% from their peak of 72.4% in April 2003 to 57.9% in February this year.

One typical two-bedroom house in Urmston, in Manchester, had already been seen by 10 people on Tuesday, six of which declared an interest in renting the property, within less than 24 hours of it coming onto the rental market.

Prospective tenant Ryan Heathcote told Sky News the prospect of him buying a property was slim.

"To get a decent deposit you are looking at £20,000, and then you have to furnish it and do it up, so it is difficult," he said.

The report put Outer London as seeing the second biggest drop - of 13.5% - to just under 58%.

The Foundation said the figures showed the proportion of people owning their own home had plummeted across every part of the UK since their peak in the early 2000s.

It can be mainly explained by house prices soaring during times of weaker wage growth and lower supply of new housing.

According to the latest official figures, the average UK house price stood at a record £211,230 in May - £227,000 in England.

The figure for London was £472,163, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, with annual growth running at a rate of almost 14%.

In contrast, annual salary growth had run at levels of 2% or below since the financial crisis.

The Foundation released its report a week after the English Housing Survey found two-thirds of private and social renters cited affordability as a barrier to home ownership.

It also came as separate figures from Eurostat showed home ownership is falling faster in the UK than any other country in the European Union - dropping 7.3% in the five years from 2009 to 2014 to 64.8%.

Only Denmark, Austria and Germany have a smaller percentage of home owners. The EU-wide average is 70.1%.

Stephen Clarke, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said: "London has a well-known and fully blown housing crisis, but the struggle to buy a home is just as big a problem in cities across the North of England."

He urged Prime Minister Theresa May to follow through on her pledge of action on prices, in a bid to tackle lower ownership levels.

"These drops are more than a simple source of frustration for the millions of people who aspire to own their home.

"The shift to renting privately can reduce current living standards and future wealth, with implications for individuals and the state.

"We cannot allow other cities to edge towards the kind of housing crisis that London has been saddled with."

Head of policy and public affairs at the housing charity Shelter, Anne Baxter said it's not surprising that home ownership is declining as house prices are "completely out of step with average wages."

She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) added: "Sky (LSE: BSY.L - news) -high rents are leaving many families struggling to make ends meet each month, let alone save up enough for the deposit on a home.

"Far from being the stepping stone it once was, many young people and families are now facing a lifetime stuck in expensive and unstable private renting."

More than 300,000 people have been helped into home ownership through government-backed schemes since 2010, however a spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government, says there is still a lot more to do.

"We've set out the most ambitious vision for housing in a generation, including delivering hundreds of thousands of homes exclusively for first-time buyers, he said."