Homeowners less reliant on mortgages in current market 

Research by Henry Dannell, a leading specialist in bespoke mortgage solutions, has revealed that the total number of homes owned with a mortgage or loan across the property market has fallen over the last five years. 

Henry Dannell analysed market data on the number of properties currently owned across England with the help of a mortgage or loan and what proportion of the total market they accounted for. 

The research shows that there are an estimated 6.8m mortgaged homes across England, with this number falling -3% since 2015. The West Midlands has seen the largest decline with a -4% drop, while London has seen the lowest reduction in mortgage-backed homeowners at just -1%. 

The market share of mortgage homes has also fallen, accounting for 28% of total dwellings in the current market, down -2% from 30% of the total market in 2015. 

This reduction in total homes owned with the help of a mortgage has been most notable in the East of England, where mortgaged homes now account for 29% of the total market, down -3% from 32% in 2015. London has again seen the smallest reduction, with mortgaged homes as a percentage of the total market down just -1% in five years.

However, not every area of the market has seen homeowners become less reliant on a mortgage. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets has the largest increase in outright homes owned with the help of a mortgage, up 16% in the last five years. 

Newham (+10%), Salford (+8%), Greenwich (+7%) and Southwark (+6%) have also seen some of the largest increases. 

Tower Hamlets also ranks as the only area of the property market where the proportion of mortgage owned homes as a percentage of all dwellings has increased. Currently mortgaged homes account for 17.2% of the borough’s property market, up from 16.9% in the last five years. 

In Hackney, this proportion of the property market has remained static, while every other area has seen a reduction. 

Director of Henry Dannell, Geoff Garrett, commented:

“A reduction in the level of mortgaged owned homes is a positive thing on the face of it, as it means more homeowners outright own their own homes and the equity they would have accumulated within it while living there. 

There’s no doubt that such a sustained period of low interest rates will have helped drive this trend, with many homeowners paying less interest and able to pay off their mortgage at a quicker rate than they may have previously. 

Of course, the other side to the story is the increasing issue of affordability for the nation’s homebuyers, many of whom may have struggled to buy and instead opted to rent long term, and this has no doubt contributed to a decline in mortgaged homes across the nation.”

Data sourced from the Office for National Statistics – Subnational dwellings by tenure (2015 to 2020 – latest available data).