Strong desire for home-ownership remains, but can it be fulfilled?

Strong desire for home-ownership remains, but can it be fulfilled?

A new CML research article shows that despite the economic and financial difficulties that have resulted from the credit crunch, 81% of British adults hope to be home-owners in ten years time, with 74% hoping to own a home within two years.  
Bob Pannell, CML chief economist is the author of the article, which is based on the results of a survey of 2005 adults carried out by YouGov between 23 and 26 March 2012.  Some of the questions asked in the survey have been repeated since the 1970s.  The results show that although the desire for home ownership has declined a little in the last few years, it still remains deep-rooted across all age groups.  
For those under 35 years aspiration levels are much higher than current home ownership levels.  .  However, it is unclear whether and how people will achieve the goal of home-ownership.  
It is notable that most of those who are renting privately or sharing with family or friends are under 35 years.  More than half of these (54%) would like to become home-owners over the next two years.  However, only a third, 33% of those who hope to become home-owners actually expect to achieve this.  
Less than a fifth (17%) of those aged 18-24 years are home-owners.  Around 40% of those aspire to home-ownership in two years, and nearly 80% would like to own a house in ten years time.  For most in this age group, home-ownership is a long-term goal.  
The gap between short term and long term aspirations shrinks in older age groups.  Only those aged 65 and over have a higher proportion of people who currently own their home, and lower percentages of those desiring home ownership in the future. 
Bob Pannell comments:
“The results clearly show that the British love affair with home-ownership is far from over.  But achieving the home ownership dream has become more difficult for some people, and is likely to remain so, especially for the young.  
“We need to ensure that good quality housing is available in a variety of different tenures, and that the growing private rental sector represents an attractive choice for those who do not want, or cannot attain, home-ownership.  However, we need to recognise that for the overwhelming majority of people, home-ownership is still the ultimate goal.”
The research article can be found here.
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