UK leads Europe in mortgage market might but sits at bottom for share of population that owns home
While the UK may trail other European nations when it comes to the total proportion of the population that own their own home, it does lead the way when it comes to the might of the mortgage sector and the number of properties purchased by borrowing.
At 65.1 per cent, the UK sits well within the bottom 10 when it comes to the total share of the population that own their own home.
Only those in just France, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, Austria, Germany and Switzerland are less likely to own their own home, while at 95.8 per cent, Romania is home to the highest level of homeowners as a percentage of the total population.
Home ownership
When it comes to the proportion of these homeowners that have borrowed in order to buy, Iceland ranks top, with 63.9 per cent of all homeowners having a mortgage, according to data by mortgage broker Henry Dannell, which analysed property market data across European foreign nations.
At 37.5 per cent, the UK ranks 10th in this respect, however, in terms of the sheer volume of homeowners financed via the mortgage sector, the UK sits top of the table by far.
In fact, over 25.2m homeowners in the UK have currently climbed the ladder with the help of the mortgage sector. Just Germany and France come close to this level, with an estimated 21.5m and 21m respectively.
Spain (13.5m) and the Netherlands (10.5m) are the only other nations where the number of mortgage-backed homeowners exceeds the 10m mark.
At the other end of the table, just 0.5 per cent of all North Macedonian homeowners have a mortgage, equating to just 10,353 of the homeowning population.
“Despite being home to some of the most notoriously high house prices in the world, homeownership remains the predominant strain in the UK property market’s DNA.” said the director of Henry Dannell, Geoff Garrett.
This is despite the fact that property values have spiralled in recent years and we’ve seen a greater acceptance of long-term renting as a lifestyle choice from younger generations.
“The ability to buy with the help of a mortgage has been vital in helping many homebuyers realise their aspirations of homeownership and while mortgage-backed homeowners only account for just shy of forty per cent of the total market, this equates to a huge 25.2m people,” he said.
“This makes the UK mortgage sector by far the most pivotal and influential in Europe where the provision of finance in order to purchase a property is concerned,” Garrett concluded.