Young homeowners will be the worst affected by the current volatile housing market, according to new analysis published by Hargreaves Lansdown.
The average house price has now more than doubled over the last 10 years, standing at £294,910 in November compared to £125,683 10 years previous.
Someone buying a decade ago with a 10% deposit would have needed £12,568 – that’s £16,923 less than they’d need today.
According to the Hargreaves Lansdown Savings & Resilience Barometer, millennial and gen Z homeowners are much less likely than their older homeowning counterparts to have enough savings or surplus income – and less likely to score ‘good’ or ‘great’ for their overall financial resilience.
Sarah Coles, senior personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The gargantuan leap to get onto the property ladder has stretched younger people’s finances wafer-thin.
“The triple threat of expensive bills, rising mortgage rates and falling house prices could shatter them.
“The average first time buyer is 32, so Generation Z will have had to have beaten the odds to be homeowners by now.
“Meanwhile, even the most geriatric Millennial homeowner is likely to have bought within the past decade.
She added: “There’s every chance they focused so hard on buying their first home that they’ve neglected other areas of their finances – and left themselves vulnerable if their circumstances change.
“They may also have stretched their budgets incredibly thin in order to buy, so if 2023 brings more inflation, an expensive remortgage and a property downturn, it could be devastating.”
