Chapters for English Housing Survey 2023 to 2024: Headline findings on demographics and household resilience
English Housing Survey 2023 to 2024: Headline findings on demographics and household resilience.
Applies to England
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The latest findings from the English Housing Survey on demographics and resilience of households in England.
This is the first release of data from the 2023-24 survey. The report will be followed by two more chapters on housing quality and energy efficiency in January and then a series of more detailed topic reports in the spring and summer of 2025.
Key findings:
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Owner occupation remained the largest tenure group in England at 65% of households, with the social rented sector (16%) being the smallest, and the private rented sector remaining a similar proportion (19%) since 2013-14.
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In 2023, there were 1.2 million vacant dwellings, making up 5% of dwellings in England.
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The proportion of households with savings remained higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Outright owners were most likely to have savings (85%), compared to those buying with a mortgage (71%), private renters (52%) and social renters (28%).
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This past year, households reported higher mortgage and rental costs, compared to five years ago (2018-19). The average weekly mortgage payments across England increased significantly (by £71 for London and £47 for the rest of England) and the average weekly rents increased by £36 for private renters and £16 for social renters.
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In 2023-24 private renters and mortgagors saw the biggest increase in those reporting difficulty affording their housing costs compared to last year (2022-23), with private renters the most likely across all tenures to be struggling (32%), followed by social renters (27%) and mortgagors the least (14%).
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In 2023-24 a higher proportion of households contained someone with a long term illness or disability – more than a third of households (37%) up from 34% in in the pre-pandemic period (2019-20).
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Owner occupiers had higher scores for life satisfaction, thinking life is worthwhile, happiness, and lower scores for anxiety, than other tenures. Owner occupiers were also less likely to report feeling often or always lonely than in other tenures.