Second Home Ownership in the UK Rises

The Number people who own of Second Homes in the UK has risen by 30% since 2000. One in 10 adults in the UK owns multiple houses, which highlights the growing generational divide in the nation’s property market. According to thinktank the Resolution Foundation, the proportion of adults owning no property has also risen, leading to wealth inequality Research from thinktank the Resolution Foundation, also indicates that the proportion of adults owning no property has also risen. Therefore indicating that the gap in generational property wealth inequality is widening. While overall home ownership has dropped this century as prices skyrocketed; the number of people with at least two properties has jumped 30 per cent to 5.2 million between 2000-02 and 2012-14. The younger generation are being left behind in terms of property wealth. The Study showed, the majority of multiple home owners were born before 1980. Furthermore, those having far more property wealth are, the so-called baby boomer generation born between 1946 and 1965. Baby Boomers accounted for a staggering 52 per cent of the wealth held in additional properties.

Growing divide of property wealth

As second home ownership in the UK Rises, the divide of property wealth in the UK grows. The report highlights the deepening of the economic divide in UK society between the young and old. Wage growth being outstripped by house price growth is excaerbating this trend. Furthermore, the rising cost of living post Brexit vote last year is compounding matters. Furthermore, a recent report from the Office for National Statistics in July of this year, stated that the disposable incomes of retired households have risen 15 per cent since 2008 in real terms. However, in contrast to this disposable incomes of working households have seen almost a decade of stagnation. Approximately 40% of adults have no property wealth at all. Which is up from 35 per cent in 2000-02. Millennials – born since 1981 – owned just 3 per cent of additional property assets, and are the first group since records began to have less of it than predecessors at the same age. Laura Gardiner, senior policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation said; “With young people much less likely to own a home at all than their predecessors at the same age, the growing concentration of property wealth among fewer families raises concerns not just for their living standards but for wealth inequality of our country as a whole,”.