Home ownership figures ‘are wrong’

Official figures for the proportion of people owning their own home “over-estimate” the actual number, a think tank has claimed. The Resolution Foundation, which campaigns for low-income families, also said the total issued by the government for the number of renters was wrong. Just over half of families actually own their own home (51%), and it peaked at 58% in 2004, the foundation said. Statistics from the Department for Communities and Local Government report the home ownership level at 64%, with a peak of 71%. “Rather than ownership being clearly the majority tenure, with two thirds owning, the country is far more evenly divided. The other half deserve more of our attention,” the foundation said. There are 5.8m families left out of the government’s figures, the foundation suggests. The discrepancies are caused by factors such as the failure to count lodgers and children who return to their parents’ home to live, according to the foundation.