Boomers had it hard with house prices – but it’s even worse for today’s first-time buyers

It reflects that over this period, earnings in England and Wales doubled – while house prices increased more than four-fold.

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, close to half of 25 to 34-year-olds owned their own home, according to the Resolution Foundation. This share has now dropped below 30pc. 

Crucially, it is not for a lack of trying, as four in five renters would prefer to own a home.

“It sounds like he [Sir Howard] needs to get out and talk to some young people and also understand the data better,” Hudson says. 

The rise in stamp duty has also made it more difficult for first-time buyers to enter the housing market, especially in areas where prices are high. 

The levy on buying a home has risen more than ten-fold since the mid-1990s, according to the Homeowners Alliance, outpacing earnings and house prices.

Temporary reductions to stamp duty in recent years have helped bring down the time needed to save for a deposit slightly, according to the Resolution Foundation. 

Short-lived former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng raised the threshold for first-time buyers to £425,000 from £300,000 in September 2022, although this will be reversed in March 2025 under current plans. 

Andrew Wishart from Capital Economics adds that while young people today are hard-pressed, there have been times when things were even more dire.

“If you are looking at an 80pc loan-to-value mortgage and take into account interest rates, pay and house prices, the cost of a mortgage is still very high by historical standards,” he says. “But it is not quite as high as it was when interest rates peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s.”

The Bank of England’s base rate was close to 15pc in the late 1980s, whereas it is now 5.25pc.