Home-ownership has 'collapsed' among middle earners - IFS

Wage growth failing to keep pace with house prices is being blamed for a "collapse" in home-ownership levels among young adults.

Those on middle incomes have been particularly affected, according to Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) data.

People aged between 25 and 34 with after-tax incomes of between £22,200 and £30,000 had a one-in-four chance of being on the property ladder in 2015-16.

That compares with two in three in the mid-1990s.

It meant, the IFS said, that the home-ownership rate among middle-income young adults - at 27% - was now closer to those with low incomes than it was to those on high incomes.

The economic research specialist said 8% of young adults on low incomes were home-owners now compared with 64% with high incomes.

Senior (Other OTC: SNIRF - news) research economist and author of the report, Andrew Hood, said of the shift: "The reason for this is that house prices have risen around seven times faster in real terms than the incomes of young adults over the last two decades."

The finding tallies with an earlier warning from the IFS that wealth is likely to become more concentrated in older people as the young struggle to buy homes at a time when they are having to pay more towards pensions and bear the brunt of weak wage growth since the financial crisis.

The report said average house prices were 152% higher in 2015-16 than they were 20 years earlier after adjusting for inflation, while real net family incomes for those aged 25-34 had increased by only 22% over the same period.

House price growth has been mainly attributed to supply failing to match demand - with the construction industry warning that a lack of skilled labour is threatening building targets.

A separate study by the Local Government Association on Friday found 423,500 homes across England and Wales were currently waiting to be built despite having been granted planning permission.

The Government says it is currently working to identify how the building process can be speeded up.

It has previously awarded financial support to help ease planning delays and said on Friday it was providing an £8.9m cash injection for projects in northern England to help kick-start the building of up to 2,241 new homes.

The Government introduced the Help to Buy scheme in 2013 to bolster access to financial support for first-time buyers unable to pay large deposits, and scrapped stamp duty for almost all first-time buyers in November's Budget.

Responding to the IFS study, housing minister Dominic Raab MP said: "Through schemes like Help to Buy, we're helping more people onto the housing ladder and last year saw the highest number of first-time buyers in the UK since 2006.

"But we want to go further and faster and our ambitious plan backed by targeted investment will help even more people by delivering the homes Britain needs for young families, key workers and those on low and middle incomes."