Two in three young adults now live with their parents to save money, according to the Resolution Foundation, as the cost of homeownership continues to spiral out of reach for a generation trapped between rising rents and stagnant wages.
The arithmetic of saving when rent consumes your pay packet
The average UK house price stands at £271,900, though that figure masks brutal regional differences. In Prime Central London the typical home costs £978,700; across the rest of the capital it is £522,200. The North East, by contrast, has seen the biggest annual price rise – 9.9 per cent – yet still remains the most affordable region at an average of £291,000. Even the modest national average demands a deposit that feels astronomical to a young earner. Lenders will accept as little as 5 per cent – £13,595 on a £271,900 property – but most buyers need 10 or 20 per cent to unlock competitive mortgage rates. The average first-time buyer deposit in 2024 was £61,090, roughly a fifth of the purchase price.
Set that against what a young person actually earns. The median salary for a full-time employee aged 22 to 29 is £33,000, producing a monthly take-home of £2,273 before any pension contributions, or around £2,163 with a 5 per cent pension deduction. Now subtract rent. The Office for National Statistics puts the average UK monthly rent at £1,374 – but in London that figure jumps to £2,290. Even outside the capital, the gap between income and housing costs leaves precious little for saving. The research shows the situation is worsening: UK rents rose 3.5 per cent year on year to April 2026, and in many areas they are climbing faster than wages. Zoopla predicts rental inflation of 2 to 3 per cent through the rest of 2026.
Mortgage affordability is no kinder. The Bank of England base rate sits at 3.75 per cent, but average two-year and five-year fixed rates have risen into the 5.4 to 5.8 per cent range. Lenders assess affordability using stressed assumptions far above current product rates, meaning borrowing power has not improved as much as headline pricing suggests. Most lenders will offer between four and four-and-a-half times annual income, but with stretched monthly payments the sums often fail. The average mortgage term for a first-time buyer is now 31 years, and some stretch to 40 years simply to bring monthly payments down from what was once a standard 25-year term.
The rise of the stay‑at‑home generation
Given those numbers, it is hardly surprising that so many young adults are retreating to the family home. Resolution Foundation data shows that 63 per cent of 20-to-24-year-olds now live with their parents – a 12 percentage point rise since 2011. Even among 25-to-29-year-olds the figure stands at 24 per cent, up from 19 per cent in 2011. The proportion of 18-to-24-year-olds who were private tenants fell from 33 per cent in 2012‑2014 to 28 per cent in 2022‑2024, as the hotel of mum and dad absorbed those who would once have rented.
Living at home can theoretically allow rapid saving. A young person on the median salary who put away £1,200 a month – just below the average rent – could accumulate more than £43,000 over three years, enough for a 10 per cent deposit on a typical UK home and well above the average of £19,442 that Gen Z savers have already put aside. Yet the discipline required is severe, and not everyone can make it work. Some young people told researchers that their parents live too far from their job, while others warned that the arrangement could damage their mental health. Investing the money is an option, but if the deposit is needed in fewer than five years, liquidity becomes a problem.
The shift back to the childhood bedroom is not simply a lifestyle choice; it is a direct response to a housing market that has locked out a generation. For those born from the mid-1990s onwards, buying a home without additional support has become all but impossible.
The bank of mum and dad: still the crucial rung on the ladder
Living rent‑free may help young people accumulate a deposit, but the Resolution Foundation found that the bank of mum and dad remains pivotal – and increasingly indispensable. Around one-third of first-time buyers last year received parental help, a figure roughly 20 percentage points higher than two decades ago. The broader picture is even starker: over half (53 per cent) of all first-time buyers now receive direct financial support from family members. In 2025 that support totalled £11.0 billion, including inheritance. The year before, in 2024, the so-called bank of mum and dad contributed approximately £9.6 billion, helping 173,500 first-time buyers with an average gift or loan of £55,572 each.
Nor is it just parents writing the cheques. Nearly half of those receiving support benefit from contributions by other family members, including grandparents – the bank of grandma and grandad is becoming a significant player. Among the youngest buyers, those aged 20 to 24, reliance is even higher: 63 per cent receive some form of help.
This intergenerational transfer is reshaping the property market. While living at home can build a deposit, the average first-time buyer still needs a top‑up that only family wealth can provide. Gen Z buyers, for all their optimism – 34 per cent aspire to buy a home, more than double the national average – still name high house prices (64 per cent) and mortgage rates (61 per cent) as the biggest barriers. Nearly six in ten of those planning to purchase in 2026 have already saved a significant sum, but the gap between what they have and what they need is often filled by older relatives.
Regional variations underline the point. In places such as Ribble Valley, South Staffordshire, Pendle and North Norfolk, the average first-time buyer manages to get on the ladder at 27 or 28 – younger than the national average of 32. The North East and parts of Wales and Scotland remain more affordable. But in London and the South East, where deposits run into six figures and rents swallow salaries, even the hotel of mum and dad may not be enough without the bank of mum and dad behind it.
