Buy to let is set to overtake social housing as the tenure of choice for renters, according to the latest government statistics.
The number of private rented homes, including student shared houses, has soared in the past decade and now equals social housing providing 3.62 million (17%) of English homes.
Owning a house is still the most popular housing choice - but is in rapid decline from a peak 14.79 million homes that amounted to 71% of all English homes in 2005 to 1.4.45 million (66%) of homes last year.
The figures were compiled by the Department for Communities and Local Government for the English Housing Survey (EHS) Household Report 2010-11.
Other key findings in the report included:
● Home owners with a mortgage paid an average £143 each week to their lender, compared to average weekly rent payments of £160 by private renters and £79 by social renters.
● 59% of private renters and 23% of social renters want to buy a home at some point. Of these, 16% had considered applying for a mortgage in the past year. Recent first time buyers were 6% of all homeowners.
● Around 2 million households moved in 2010-11, compared to 1.8 million in 2009-10. Of these, 62% were private renters, 22% were home owners and 16% were social renters
● Households living in poverty are more likely to live in homes with significant repair and damp problems
● Most households had no complaints with their neighbourhoods or accommodation, however, although most felt where they lived had not changed much over the previous two years, they were more likely to complain if they felt the neighbourhood had got worse rather than better.
DOWNLOAD: English Housing Survey (EHS) Household Report 2010-11 [LINK: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/2173283.pdf ]
