Public Servant Lifestyle

Findings reveals the price parents will pay to help their children on the home ownership ladder.

Parents of would-be home owners expect they will have to contribute an average £17,000 of their own money so their adult children can gain a foothold on the increasingly expensive housing ladder.

A survey by MORI for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation of home-owning parents of 18-29 year-olds reveals that more than half who expect their children to become homebuyers think they won’t succeed without a substantial financial contribution.

And while the average sum identified as a likely gift or loan is £17,000, the figure in the North of England, where starter homes are least expensive, is significantly lower at £7,220, rising to £23,670 in the South, where prices are highest and housing shortages most acute.

Majority

A majority of parents who are prepared to help believe they can find the money without changing the financial arrangements for their own home, but one in five (22%) are prepared to borrow to raise capital for their children.

The MORI survey findings*, based on interviews with 560 home owners with adult children, points to a three-way split between those whose children have already started to buy a house, those that are renting and those still living at home. Among parents with a son or daughter who had not yet started to buy, 85% thought it likely their child would want to buy their own home in the next ten years.

But when asked if their child would be able to set foot on the housing ladder without parental financial support, fewer than half (45%) said it was likely, compared with 52% who thought it was not. Nearly half (47%) anticipated that they would be willing and able to offer financial support, with most saying it would be in the form of a gift, rather than a loan.

Parents with more than one adult child who was not an owner-occupier were mostly convinced they could offer financial support with house buying to all their children. However, one in eight (12%) considered it unlikely they would be able to do this.

Among home-owning parents who were not able or willing to offer financial help, over half (53%) believed their children would still manage to obtain a mortgage or loan. Three in ten (29%) referred to renting and one in eight (12%) said their child could continue to live with them. Parents who anticipated that their child would be able to buy their first home unaided were in a majority (63%) in the North, but a minority in the South (38%).

Owner-Occupiers

Richard Best, Director of the Foundation, said: “Parents who are owner-occupiers are coming to terms with the fact that high house prices are not necessarily good news after all. The value of their own property may have risen, but their children will find it increasingly difficult to follow them up the home ownership ladder unless they are prepared to help them with a substantial gift or loan.

“Our own research has shown just how unaffordable starter homes have become across the South of England in relation to local pay for young adults. The truth, for better or worse, is that homes will only become more affordable when we have increased the level of house building in areas where shortages are acute – a point underlined by Kate Barker’s recent review of housing supply for H.M. Treasury.”

*Homeowners: Sons and Daughters, a survey of parents who are owner-occupiers, was carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) by the MORI Social Research Institute. Fieldwork was conducted in March 2004 during two waves of the fortnightly MORI Omnibus – each with a representative sample of around 2,000 adults aged 15 and over. Among the 2,890 homeowners interviewed, 561 respondents were identified with children aged 18 to 29.

Can Work – Can’t Buy by Prof. Steve Wilcox - the Foundation’s full report on young people’s access to starter homes in English districts, can also be found on the JRF website.