UK buyers need to save for up to 24 years to get on housing ladder

Resolution Foundation research shows it can now take almost a quarter of a century for UK households to accumulate a big enough deposit

Homebuyers now have to save for up to 24 years to set aside a deposit large enough to buy them a foot on Britain's housing ladder, according to new research.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank has used the Bank of England's latest survey of household finances to show that with house prices rising sharply, it would now take almost a quarter of a century for low- and middle-income households to accumulate a deposit on average, if they set aside 5% of their disposable income each year.