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Saturday 9 August 2014

Saturday, August 09, 2014 Posted by Jake 1 comment Labels: , , ,
Posted by Jake on Saturday, August 09, 2014 with 1 comment | Labels: , , ,

Well, I have to say this one surprised me when I first saw it. The lowest two deciles by income have the highest proportion owning their homes outright, with no outstanding mortgage.


There are many ways to rationalise this:
  • Poorest slowly pay off their mortgage over decades, and stay put.
  • Poorest inherit from parents, and don't move on.
  • Poorest live in cheaper areas, requiring lower mortgages that can be paid off.
  • Poorest deciles include pensioners on low incomes, but who own their homes outright.
  • Wealthier more aspirational people stay in a spiral of mortgages to move to bigger places
Perhaps I am being patronising. Whatever the reason, it is still surprising. And the data provides a clue who Help To Buy is not aimed at.

For the ONS data, see Table15 hosted HERE.

1 comment:

  1. If you controlled for age you'd probably get a very different chart. Essentially this is showing that pensioners (lower income than working people, or even many families on benefits) are most likely to have paid off their mortgages. No surprise there...

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