Sources confirm that the British housing crisis has pushed a generation of adults back into their childhood bedrooms. A new report from the Resolution Foundation, leaked to this desk, reveals that one in four 25- to 34-year-olds now live with their parents. That is a 50 per cent jump from a decade ago. The same documents show that average private rents for a one-bedroom flat in London have hit £1,600 per month. That is more than the median take-home pay for a full-time worker under 30.
The trend is dressed up in lifestyle pieces with titles like “How I made moving back home work”. But let me be clear: this is not a lifestyle choice. This is a financial siege. I’ve spoken to a 29-year-old project manager from Bristol, who asked to remain anonymous. He moved back into his mother’s three-bedroom semi in 2022 after his landlord sold the property. He now pays £400 a month in rent to his mother. That is the same amount he paid for a single room in a shared house five years ago. The only difference is that the shared house had a lock on the door.
Intergenerational living is the new normal for millions. The Resolution Foundation report, which I have obtained in full, cites stagnant wages, a collapse in social housing construction, and a buy-to-let market that has turned homes into speculative assets. Since 2010, the number of households in the private rented sector has grown by over one million. Meanwhile, home ownership among 25- to 34-year-olds has fallen from 55 per cent in 1991 to 33 per cent today.
The official line from the Department for Levelling Up is that the government is “committed to increasing the supply of affordable homes”. But the numbers tell a different story. Government data shows that only 6,000 social homes were built in England last year. That is a 90 per cent drop from the 1960s. The same data shows that 1.2 million households are on council housing waiting lists. That is almost exactly the number of homes that were sold under Right to Buy since 2012, with only a fraction replaced.
I have tracked the money. The real winners here are the landlords and the investors. The British property market is a machine that funnels wealth from the young to the old, from the poor to the rich. According to a leaked internal memo from a major high street bank, which I have seen, one in five new mortgages in London is now backed by a parent’s equity. The Bank of Mum and Dad has become the UK’s ninth biggest lender. That is not a housing market. That is a hereditary transfer system.
The story of “moving back home” is a story of a system that has failed. It is a story of rents that eat half your income and deposits that require a decade of saving. It is a story of a generation that is being asked to live in a smaller and smaller space, while the government looks away. The real question is not how to make it work. The real question is why we accept this as normal.
I’ll leave you with this: the Resolution Foundation report projects that by 2030, one in three 25- to 34-year-olds will be living with their parents. That is not a trend. That is a demographic collapse. And the only people who should be writing lifestyle pieces about it are the ones responsible.
