A recent survey carried out by the not-for-profit Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) of 2,028 people found that the proportion of young people that consider owning their own home is in decline.

Are we becoming more like mainland Europe where people no longer consider their home to be their castle? Has the fundemental British desire to own property waned with a new generation or has the current economic climate effected a paradigm shift in the psyche of the youth?
My feeling is that the latter is correct.

"We've driven too many people into unsustainable owner-occupation," said CIH chief executive Sarah Webb.

"A generation has grown up believing it has to own at any cost - in part because we have not provided them with decent information about the alternatives." In the 25 to 34 age bracket, the proportion who believed that owning their own home was the ideal living situation fell from 83% a year ago to 69% now.

My feeling is that the price surge in property initally put younger people off or made it impossible to "get on the ladder". Follow that with a housing crash breeding fear amongst owners, a credit crunch with lenders collapsing and pulling out of the market, more difficult lending criteria (where once we had 115% mortgages for professionals and 6 times salary multiples) properties being repossessed hand over fist and we now have a situation where owning a home is a scary prospect.

Has a situation been created where the property ends up in the hands of the few and is rented to the masses? I hope not.