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New research has revealed that a third of British renters have given up on ever buying a house while half of them think that the prospect of owning a property is increasingly being reserved for the wealthiest.

Two-thirds of tenants around the UK also admitted that the prospect of renting forever would make them unhappy, with this figure rising to 84% among Londoners.

These findings echo another recent study from the English Housing Survey which revealed that the number of privately rented households has doubled over the past 16 years, from 2 million in 2000 to 4.5 million in 2016.

Young tenants in the capital remain on the rental market roughly seven years more than the rest of the country.

Renting in London is described as “painful” and “unappealing”: A fifth of the people surveyed complained they were treated like students by letting agents, rather than receiving a service that reflects their age or social standing. The same proportion admitted living in a property they weren't happy with just because they "couldn't bear to deal with the hassle of moving".

Mayank Mathur set up The Urban Collective after becoming fed up with their own process of renting last year.

“Fifteen years ago, renting was a stop gap until people could save enough to buy."

"Today, owning a home is a long-term goal and in 15 years’ time it might just be an impossible dream”, he told London Live.

He continues: “If we’re going to become a nation of ‘forever renters’ then clearly the conditions have to improve."

"No wonder the thought of renting forever makes British people so unhappy: the rental market has geared towards serving landlords rather than tenants.”

"Having personally experienced this ourselves, we’re trying to prioritise tenants for the first time and revolutionise the rental experience, bringing it into the 21st century.”

The Urban Collective offers services allowing tenants to “outsource the heavy lifting of finding and securing a new home” to an expert. According to the company, using an expert would divide the time to find a new place by four.