Maw Comms news
10 Apr, 17 25 – The average age parents expect their children will leave home
Stay at home Millennials – 40% of parents worry their children will never be able to buy a home.
- Parents estimate that their children will be 32 before they will be able to buy a home;
- A fifth say their kids have a better chance of inheriting a home than buying one;
- Almost one in ten (9%) said they would encourage their children to emigrate and buy abroad.
New research* commissioned by Gocompare.com Money reveals that the average age parents expect their children to fledge the nest is 25 but, just over a quarter (26%), don’t think their kids will leave home until over the age of 26.
Gocompare.com asked parents of about their children’s prospects for home ownership. Generally, the outlook is quite pessimistic with parents estimating that their children would be 32 years old before getting their foot on the property ladder, and 40% are worried that their children will never be in a position to buy their own home.
A fifth of parents think their children have a better chance of inheriting a home than buying one.
While many first-time buyers rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad to help towards the cost of their home, almost a quarter (24%) of parents said that they were unable to offer any financial help at all, and just over half (51%) said they would like to help, but doing so would leave them short of savings. Just 19% said they could comfortably afford to help their children buy a home.
In order to help increase their prospects of home ownership, over a third (34%) of parents would suggest that their children move to a cheaper area, while 9% said they would go as far as to encourage their kids to emigrate and buy abroad.
While the outlook for their children’s home ownership prospects might be bleak, when one door closes, another opens. Nearly half (48%) thought their children should go and see the world before worrying about buying a home while 21% would tell their children to rent instead of buying. However, 23% of parents admitted that knowing their children may never be able to afford their own home left them feeling angry.
Commenting on the research, Matt Sanders, from Gocompare.com Money said, “Our survey suggests that young adults are living at home with their parents far longer than previous generations. There are a variety of explanations why many twenty-somethings are not financially independent from their parents and continue to live under the same roof – sometimes well into adulthood.
“Young people are more likely to stay in full-time education than previous generations, and while they benefit from a university education, tuition fees mean they are saddled with more debt. Over the last decade or so, house prices have risen as have the size of mortgage deposits lenders require – however wages have remained relatively static. As a result, Millennials’ experience with home ownership has been very different to previous generations.
Matt Sanders continued, “Millennials keen to fly the nest could benefit from a tax-free Lifetime ISA. Available from April 2017, Lifetime ISAs can only be opened if you’re between the ages of 18 and 40 and are designed to help the under 40s put cash aside for either their first house or a pension.
“Savers can contribute up to £4,000 within a tax year, which will then be boosted with a Government bonus of 25% – but only if the money is used to buy a first-home or for retirement from the age of 60. So, savers paying in the maximum allowance in one year will earn an extra £1,000 tax free – or to put it another way, £1 is added for every £4 saved.
“A Lifetime ISA has to be held for a year before you can put your savings towards the cost of your first home. This means that anyone looking to buy within the next 12 months could consider taking out a Help-to-Buy Isa where the savings bonus is paid out on completion.”
For more details on Lifetime ISAs visit: http://www.gocompare.com/savings/lifetime-isas/
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For further information please contact:
Anders Nilsson or Martyn John at Gocompare.com on 01633 654 054 / 01633 654 725
Gordon, Jason or Liz at MAW Communications on 01603 505 845
Keep up-to-date with the Gocompare.com press team on Twitter; @Gocomparecomms
Notes to editors:
*Between 08 and 14 February 2017, OnePoll conducted an online survey among 1,000 parents with children aged 17 to 25 years old. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.
Gocompare.com is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs. Gocompare.com does not charge people to use its services, and it does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. Gocompare.com makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site. Gocompare.com does not sell its customers’ data.
When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. Gocompare.com has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest, and has teamed up with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.
Gocompare.com is the only comparison website to be invited to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
