The rise in house prices over the last two decades has led to just one in four middle-income young adults owning their own home – down from two in three 20 years ago.
A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank published on Friday revealed just 27% of 25 to 34-year-olds earning between £22,200 and £30,600 a year owned a home in 2015-2016.
In 1995–96, 65% of the same demographic owned a property.
John Healey, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, said the research should be a “wake-up call” for the Tories.
“After almost eight years of failure on housing, the government is still failing to tackle the fundamental problems with our broken housing market,” he said.
“Conservative ministers have let down first-time buyers on ordinary incomes. They promised to build 200,000 new cut-price ‘starter homes’, but three years on not a single one has been built.”
Andrew Hood, a senior research economist at the IFS and one of the report’s authors, said the “collapse” in home ownership was down to the fact “house prices have risen around seven times faster in real terms than the incomes of young adults over the last two decades”.
According to the IFS, home ownership for young adults has fallen furthest in the south east of England.
The proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds who own their own home has dropped by 32% in the south east (from 64%) and by more than 10% in every other region.