Home ownership

Published

Last updated 8 August 2023 - see all updates

1. Main facts and figures

  • 63% of households in England owned their own homes in the 2 years from 2016 to 2018

  • 68% of White British households owned their own homes, compared with 74% of Indian households

  • households in the Black African (20%) and Arab (17%) ethnic groups had the lowest rates of home ownership

  • in every region in England except the North East, White British households were more likely to be homeowners than all ethnic minority households combined, although figures for the North East may not be reliable because of the small number of households surveyed

  • in every, socio-economic group and age group, White British households were more likely to own their own homes than all ethnic minority households combined

  • in every income band except for the lowest, White British households were more likely to be homeowners than all ethnic minority households combined

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

This data measures the number and percentage of households whose occupants owned their home (including people with a mortgage on the home).

The information relates to households, which is either one person or a group of people sharing cooking facilities and a living room or dining area.

Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number but have been worked out using unrounded numbers.

Not included in the data

Estimates based on fewer than 30 households have not been included. This is because it is harder to make reliable generalisations from smaller numbers of survey respondents.

The ethnic groups used in the data

For data analysed by ethnicity, the 18 standardised ethnic groups from the 2011 Census are shown.

For data analysed by ethnicity and another factor, 2 ethnic groups are shown:

  • White British
  • Other – all ethnic minority groups (including White minorities)

This is to keep group sizes big enough to be able to make reliable generalisations.

Some households contain people from different ethnic backgrounds. The ethnicity assigned to the household is that of the head of the household (usually the person with the highest income). The data does not account for people of different ethnic backgrounds who live in the same household.

The ethnicity was known for 99.8% of households.

Methodology

Read the detailed methodology document for this data.

The data is an average for the years ending March 2017 and March 2018. This is to make sure there are enough households to be able to make reliable generalisations.

The figures on this page are based on survey data. Find out more about interpreting survey data, including how reliability is affected by the number of people surveyed.

In the data file

See Download the data for:

  • figures rounded to 1 decimal place
  • sample sizes
  • weighted figures for the numerator and denominator

3. By ethnicity

Percentage and number of households (in thousands) that owned their own home, by ethnicity
Ethnicity % Homeowners ('000s) All households ('000s)
All 63 14,604 23,160
Asian
Bangladeshi 46 69 152
Chinese 45 50 111
Indian 74 406 550
Pakistani 58 207 358
Asian other 39 74 190
Black
Black African 20 88 431
Black Caribbean 40 124 308
Black other 37 12 32
Mixed
Mixed White/Asian 70 36 52
Mixed White/Black African 34 29 85
Mixed White/Black Caribbean 32 30 93
Mixed other 42 31 73
White
White British 68 12,851 18,863
White Irish 56 120 213
White Gypsy/Traveller withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable
White other 30 388 1,307
Other
Arab 17 14 83
Any other 29 71 250

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)

4. Data sources

Source

Type of data

Survey data

Type of statistic

National Statistics

Publisher

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Note on corrections or updates

Information published in the headline report and other annual reports is based on a single year rather than 2 years' data. As a result, the figures shown here may not match those in the English Housing Survey reports.

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The English Housing Survey collects information about:

  • people’s housing circumstances
  • the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England

5. Download the data

Home ownership spreadsheet - Spreadsheet (csv) 19 KB

This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, geography, age group, NS-SEC (socio-economic group), income, region, value, denominator, numerator and sample size -- Please note, the overall percentage of people owning their own home differs when other variables are included in the analysis. This is because there were different response rates for questions about age, income, regions and socio-economic status (NS-SEC). This has resulted in 4 different percentages, sample sizes etc.