Rising affordability pressures, changing working patterns and evolving buyer expectations mean the mortgage and property sector must do more than simply promote ownership; it must provide clearer guidance, more flexible solutions and advice that reflects modern lives. For ‘In Focus’, Neil Louth, Group Executive Director at LRG and CEO of Acorn Group, explores why homeownership continues to matter and how the industry can better support the next generation of buyers.
For my generation, homeownership has had a simple emotional and financial logic. A first home offered security, stability and independence, allowing people to build equity rather than pay rent indefinitely and, over time, to participate in capital growth.
Ownership remains one of the most effective ways to build long-term financial resilience. But we need to better understand younger buyers’ motivation for buying: how realistic it is, how much it costs and whether the sacrifices required are worth it.
Aspiration remains
The English Housing Survey found that 69% of 16 to 34-year-old households expected to buy a home eventually in 2024-25, exactly the same proportion as ten years earlier.
The frustration is that the route is longer and less certain. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that 39% of 25 to 34-year-olds owned their home in 2022-23, compared with 59% in 2000. The English Housing Survey also shows that the average first-time buyer was 34 in 2024-25, rising to 35 in London.
Many younger people are not buying later because ownership has lost its appeal, but because the financial hurdle is higher.
Affordability psychology
The old bargain was that buying required sacrifice, but the reward was visible. Today that bargain needs explaining more carefully.
ONS figures show that in 2025 the median home in England cost £300,000, or 7.6 times median full-time earnings. Nationwide estimates that a 10% deposit on a typical UK first-time buyer property is around £23,000, taking nearly six years to save if someone put aside 10% of average net pay each month. In London, the equivalent period is around nine years.
This changes the way people think. A deposit is no longer a short period of disciplined saving. For many, it is a multi-year project competing with rent, transport, student debt, childcare, career choices and family plans.
A simple instruction to “get on the ladder” can sound detached from the lived reality of many younger households.
There is also a fairness issue. Government data shows that nearly a third of recent first-time buyers received help from family or friends to fund their deposit. UK Finance adds that those with family support are able to buy younger and on lower household incomes than those without it.
Family help can be positive, but a market that relies on it is less open to those whose parents or grandparents cannot help. The challenge now is that many parents are facing their own financial pressures, whether that’s the cost of living, pension planning or simply not seeing the same levels of equity growth that previous generations enjoyed.
We can’t assume that future buyers will continue to receive the same level of family support.
Increasing mobility
The sector also needs to be more candid about time horizons, particularly bearing in mind that generations are increasingly mobile. If someone expects to live in a property for ten years, ownership still has a strong case. If they expect to stay for two years, the answer may be different.
Transaction costs, mortgage interest, maintenance, service charges and the risk of a flat or falling market all matter. Rightmove’s April 2026 analysis found that the average advertised rent in Great Britain was £1,547 per month, compared with an estimated £1,670 for a new mortgage on a typical home.
That will invariably raise the question of whether a younger buyer is right to go to the trouble and cost of buying if rent is easier and cheaper.
For lenders and advisers, this is where guidance becomes commercially and socially important. We should help people understand when buying is sensible, when waiting is rational and how to prepare for ownership without overstretching.
Products to reflect modern lives
There are grounds for optimism. UK Finance says 391,000 first-time buyer loans were granted in 2025, up from 332,000 in 2024, supported by product innovation. But by Q4 2025, first-time buyers were still typically spending 22.1% of gross income on initial mortgage payments.
We need more innovation, but with care. Longer mortgage terms, higher loan-to-income products, family-assisted mortgages and low-deposit options can all help suitable buyers.
Shared ownership and other alternative routes also have a role. But these products must be explained plainly, with proper attention to future costs, staircasing, resale, service charges and resilience if circumstances change.
For financial professionals, the opportunity is to move from product comparison to life-stage advice. Younger buyers want to know not only what they can borrow, but what they can safely sustain.
Conclusion
Younger generations do not need to be patronised about homeownership. There is no reason to think that they fail to understand its value. What they need is a sector that recognises the trade-offs they face and responds with clarity rather than slogans.
The case for ownership remains strong: security, control, protection from future rent increases, the discipline of repayment and the chance to build wealth over time.
But it now has to be made more carefully, with better education, better products and a more honest conversation about affordability and risk.
