The explosive growth of private rental properties (and extortionate rents) is preventing millions of people from saving for their own home, trapping them in an exploitative and endless cycle with landlords, a new report finds today.

The key findings of the report from Localis show that:

The number of homes bought by people aged 24 to 44 with a mortgage has dropped by over 1.6 million in just over a decade.

58 percent of people who do not already own their home (outright or with a mortgage) are saving nothing at all each month for a deposit to buy a home in the future.

The number of people aged 24-44 renting privately has increased by close to 1.8m in the past decade.

Why does this matter? Put simply, paying a mortgage is typically far cheaper than paying rent:

Households that rent typically spend twice as much of their income (35 per cent) on rent as owner occupiers do on mortgage payments (17 percent).

Add to this the fact that the quality of private rented homes tend to be worse than those of owner-occupied homes, and the argument for home ownership vs. private renting becomes stronger.

For example, in 2015/16, 28 per cent of homes in the private rental sector failed to meet the government’s Decent Homes Standard compared to eighteen percent of owner-occupied homes.