Rise of the ‘rent till you drop’ generation

A DRAMATIC fall in middle- aged homeowners has fuelled fears that more people will be forced to rent until they die.

Young people are now far less likely to own their own home, a report by the Office for National Statistics has revealed.

As property prices have risen faster than wages, a third of people in their mid-30s to mid-40s were tenants in 2017 – compared with fewer than one in ten in 1997.

This age group is three times more likely to be renting than 20 years ago. The figures emerge ahead of next month’s Budget when Chancellor Sajid Javid is expected to announce plans to tackle the shortage of affordable housing by offering discounts to first-time buyers.

The ONS said increases in the rental sector have been seen for all age groups apart from the very oldest, with the ‘increase particularly pronounced in mid-life’.

They warned that these ‘changes in housing tenure patterns could have implications for what life will be like for older people in the future’. This is because while homeowners pay their own maintenance costs, renting is more expensive.

The report found that homeowners could maintain their living standards later in life with a pension pot of £260,000, while someone who rents privately would need almost double this – £445,000. Baroness Altmann, a former pensions minister, described the situation as a ‘vicious circle’ where rising property values are pushing up rent making it harder for tenants to save.

She added: ‘There is a danger that the number of people renting until they die will be much higher in future – which gives them less security and more stress.

‘It also means that the next generation will be poorer as they won’t have a property to pass on.’