First-time buyers who purchased in 2025 received the equivalent of £7.6bn in rent-free support by living with parents before buying, according to new Savills research that underlines how hard it remains to leave the rental cycle and move into ownership.
Savills said 254,000 first-time buyers had lived at home for an average of three years and seven months, with the value of a room estimated at £160 a week. Almost two thirds – 63% – had benefited from a period of rent-free living, rising to 71% in London.
The landlord angle is that many aspiring buyers still need years of family support before they can put together a viable deposit. A housing market that depends this heavily on free accommodation from relatives is not easing pressure on the private rented sector. It is merely delaying the point at which many households can leave it.
Deposit barriers are still keeping renters in place for longer
Savills found that more than a quarter of first-time buyers who had lived at home rent free stayed there for at least five years before purchase. The average saving period of three years and seven months points to a market where deposit-building remains difficult even before buyers face higher mortgage costs, moving expenses and legal fees.
For investors, the message is not that every would-be buyer will remain a tenant indefinitely. It is that the route out of renting is still heavily filtered by family wealth and housing circumstances. Those without access to a spare bedroom at home, or parents willing to absorb living costs for years, remain at a sharper disadvantage.
Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, said reduced housing costs from living with family had become one of the most important forms of support for first-time buyers trying to build a deposit.
This follows Residential Landlord’s recent analysis of the friction still built into homebuying and July reporting on a sales market where stock has improved but affordability remains tight. The latest Savills figures suggest that better choice for buyers is not the same thing as genuine access.
Why prolonged family support still matters to landlords
A buyer staying at home is not a tenant in the market today, but the data still speaks to rental demand because it shows what happens before an eventual purchase is possible. Where ownership requires years of subsidised saving, many tenants will either stay in rented homes for longer or never make the move at all.
That is one reason the private rented sector can stay busy even when buyer sentiment improves. Transactions may recover, but mobility is still capped by deposit formation and income pressure. Landlords should read this less as a cultural story about adult children at home and more as evidence that ownership remains structurally hard to reach without family help.
The longer that remains true, the less realistic it is to expect a broad, natural easing of rental demand. Pressure may shift between regions and property types, but the exit route from renting remains narrow.
Opinion
The so-called Hotel of Mum and Dad is not a quirky side story. It is a measure of how far the market still relies on private family subsidy to function. For landlords, that means demand will stay stickier than many policymakers seem willing to admit.
