More build-to-rent homes are needed

Investment in build-to rent homes could be one of the solutions to adult children having to live with their parents for longer.

Research from Civitas, Institute for the Study of Civil Society, shows a million more sons and daughters in the UK are living with their parents than there were two decades ago.

The report reveals that a quarter of 20 to 34-year-olds live at home and since 1998 this has risen by 41 per cent in London, where housing is most expensive.

It has risen by less in cheaper areas like north-east England (14 per cent) and Yorkshire and the Humber (17 per cent).

The study suggests youngsters who do move out are much less likely to live on their own than they were in the late 1990s and single-person households have dropped to 30 per cent in recent years.

This is in stark contrast to most of northern and western Europe, the report says, where single living has been increasing rapidly.

In France and the Netherlands, 35 per cent of households are single-person – and this rises to more than 40 per cent in Germany and Denmark.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says: “For the last 30 years, governments of all stripes and types have failed to build enough homes, but we’re turning that ship around.

“We still need to deliver more, better, faster, but more than 222,000 homes were delivered in 2017 and 2018, the highest level in all but one of the last 31 years.

“We’ve also set out an ambitious package of measures to help build 300,000 properties a year by the mid-2020s.

“This includes over £44bn investment, rewriting the planning rules and giving local authorities the power to build a new generation of council houses.

“We are also supporting investment in build-to-rent homes to improve supply and affordability in the private rented sector.”