AtHomeWithSarahBeenyAutumn2016 - 48

CAUGHT IN A TRAP WITH PROPERTY PRICES INCREASING AT A RATE OF KNOTS, A WHOLE GENERATION FIND THEMSELVES UNABLE TO AFFORD TO BUY THEIR OWN HOME. SO WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THEM? B uying their own home is little more than a pipe dream for the majority of young people because house prices have simply become unaffordable. That's the truth facing Generation Rent - 25 to 34 year olds caught in a trap where house prices have rocketed in the past 15 years compared to wages. At the start of the millennium, the average house cost 3.2 times as much as the average wage. These days it is 5.5 times, according to the Halifax Bank. And the situation shows no sign of improving. LOCKED OUT Put simply, the cost of buying a home, particularly in London, bears no relation to what most people can actually afford. And it's been that way for a while. Homeowning in Britain peaked in 2003 at 71% and has been declining ever since. According to professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, within 10 years London will be a city of renters. By 2025, it reckons, only 40% of those living in the capital will own their own home. Locked out by high prices and unattainable deposits and mortgages, young people are the hardest hit. By then, barely a quarter (26%) of those aged 20-39 will own their own home, it says. In just 25 years, the city is a place where rental is becoming the norm - especially for younger people. Not that home ownership has always been an expectation. In Victorian Britain, only one in five Britons owned their own homes. We 048 | OCTOBER 2016 SARAH SAYS 'Whether you're planning on buying or not, try to save some money every month. And if you get into the habit of doing this, you should have a nice chunk set aside for when you can buy.' were not so much, as Napoleon had it, a nation of shopkeepers as a nation of tenants. And those days, it seems, are on their way back. According to the latest projections*, by 2020, first-time buyers in the UK will need a salary of £64,000 to be able to afford to buy their own home - a fifth more than is needed at the moment (£52,000). The national average wage is barely half that, at £26,500. In London, the situation is even worse. By 2020, the annual income needed to buy a house will exceed six figures - £106,000 - and that's if you've saved up £138,000 for the deposit, otherwise you'll get a poor deal on your mortgage. There is no standard amount that people need to have saved up before they can get a mortgage; but the bigger the deposit you have, the cheaper the mortgage deals you will be able to get. This is because the more money you are able to put towards a house, the less of a risk you pose to a lender. THE DEPOSIT Consumer magazine Which? says that in recent years first-time buyers have typically used a 20% deposit to buy a house. If you can't afford that, the number of 90% and 95% mortgages on the market is on the increase so, provided you meet lenders' affordability criteria, then a 10% or 5% deposit may be enough. So if you want a £200,000 house, you would need to have £20,000 in savings for a 90% mortgage or £10,000 for a 95% mortgage. There are also two government schemes

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