Fall in English home ownership halted

The decline in home ownership recorded over the past decade in England ground to a halt last year, the latest figures show. The data from the 2014/15 English Housing Survey reveals that 5,000 more people were home owners than in the previous year – the first increase since 2005. The rise in the proportion of home owners rose from 63.3 per cent to 63.6 per cent of the total is the first increase since 2002, taking the total to 14.3 million. By contrast the number of people living in private rental accommodation dropped to 4.3 million, the first decline in 17 years. But the short term trends shown in the latest English Housing Survey need to be treated with caution, given that the reported fall in private renting in 2014-15 follows a particularly large increase in the preceding year, according to Lucian Cook (left), head of Savills UK residential research. “Behind the short term volatility, levels of private renting among under 35s are still up by over 1 million in the past decade,” he said. Nevertheless, the Housing Minister Brandon Lewis (right) insists that the figures are still a clear sign that housing market conditions are improving. He commented, “In…