One in four property transactions this year are expected to involve borrowing from parents to fund the purchase, but the amounts of money being borrowed are falling.
Grown-up children are relying on cash from their parents to help get them onto the property ladder, with an estimated £5.7bn expected to be forked out to purchase homes to the tune of a total £82bn by the end of 2018.
This is according to data from Legal & General, which estimates that 319,000 prospective buyers will get help from their parents, with three out of five under-35s getting a helping parental hand. Surprisingly, even 8% of over-55s are getting help from their families to buy property.
As baby boomers tend to have more stashed away than millennials, while house prices as a proportion of average salaries are more disparate than ever, it is perhaps no surprise that families are pooling their finances and helping each other invest in bricks and mortar.
Stamp duty cuts might be helping
Yet the amounts being lent out are declining, with the average homebuyer now borrowing £18,000 from their parents, which is £4,000 (or 17%) less than it was this time last year. However, this could be due in part to the effects of the stamp duty cut for first time buyers which has been in effect for the past six months, bringing down the total cost of buying a home for first-timers.
There are other ways for people to get onto the property ladder without borrowing from parents, such as lifetime ISAs, Help to Buy ISAs, shared ownership schemes and Help to Buy loans – all of which come with various criteria and requirements but can provide a big boost for those trying to save for a deposit for a home.
Families can also help their children in more ways than just handing over the cash for a deposit, such as by taking out a joint borrower sole proprietor mortgage or a multiple generation mortgage with their child. Inheritance tax rules could also be set to change, affecting how much money can be gifted to offspring.
