A survey shows only five percent of the population are living in their "dream" home, with most people having to settle for less.
The poll for Alliance and Leicester (A&L) reports 2.3 million British adults out of the 46.6 million in total believe they are living in a “halfway house”. A further 1.9 million feel no emotional attachment to their property, either because they’re living in a flatshare they do not own, or because they are dissatisfied with the property they have bought.
It seems the highest level of discontent is in the Capital: only 3% of Londoners gave their homes top marks, whereas 8% of people living in Wales or East Anglia scored their home as a perfect 10.
The obvious explanation for this disparity is house prices: the housing market boom has pushed the "perfect" property out of the reach of more and more homeowners, especially in London where living in a flatshare is increasingly common. Household budgets are being further stretched by rising interest rates.
Director of Mortgages at A&L, Stephen Leonard, takes a more positive view of the findings: "It seems people are happy to move into a property that isn't their ideal in order to move up the property ladder and reap the benefit of rising house prices. More and more people seem to be looking for property on the basis of an investment, rather than buying their dream home."
