The group born between 1983 and 1987 are half as likely to have bought a home by the age of 25, as were the same group 20 years before.
There is also a shift to rental for families with children.
In the period of 20 years from 1994 to 2014, in income terms the lowest quintile of home ownership dropped from 40% to 37%; the highest quintile dropped from 94% to 87%; but the middle quintile dropped from 69% to 50%, which is significant.
Rental costs for 26-to-30-year olds have also risen hugely.
In the Sixties it cost just a little bit more to rent than to buy.
Now rental costs are getting on for 30% of income whereas the cost of servicing a mortgage takes just 15%.
But in spite of this, everyone is seeking to promote home ownership — building societies, banks, politicians — are all in on the act.
Even the Bank of England does not want to upset homebuyers.
The only ones not playing ball are the 20-somethings and that may be because prices are so high there is no point in even trying.
Of course people think buying a house is a sure-fire way to make money. That’s been the case till now and it’s why people are still trying to get on the ladder.
But if house prices were stable, not for a year or two, but for a decade or more, people would be much more likely to go for rented housing, provided of course (and this is a big caveat) there was an adequate supply of good homes to rent.
Over time people might gradually give up on home ownership, and we could fall back to the levels of the Forties and Fifties.
“The UK urgently needs a high-quality private rental market like the Swiss and Germans. That would hugely improve the flexibility of our economy, reduce UK unemployment, and produce a lot of extra happiness all round,” Oswald said at the time.
But he does not expect it to happen any time soon.
