Many retirees have a second home

Over recent years many non-homeowners have found it more and more difficult to get onto the property ladder, with lenders becoming more stringent about lending money to first time buyers and demanding higher deposits, which most first time buyers cannot afford. This has resulted in many non-homeowners giving up on their dreams of homeownership for now and having to settle for renting a home instead.

However, whilst the younger generation struggles to even get a big toe on the property ladder many people that are coming up to retirement are the proud owners of second homes. A recent survey revealed that one in seven couples in their fifties and early sixties own a second home, with an average £250,000 tied up in their second homes, not including any mortgage on the second home and not including the value of their main home.

At the same time their grandchildren and in some cases even their children are struggling to get the chance to own even one home. Many are unable to secure the deposit that they need to get onto the property ladder and many others cannot afford the repayments on their current income. This has left them facing the toughest challenge to buy a home out of any other generation. The figures were released recently by the Office for National Statistics. This is the first time that calculations have been carried out to see how many people within this age group own a second home.

Overall 13 percent of people in that age group were found to own a second property, which in some cases was abroad. Many will have purchased these properties before the boom, with the average price when they purchased the home being £30,000 but the value for the same property today being an average £163,000.

Tags: time buyers, main home, grandchildren, boom, percentage, couples, time, price