A shortage of new homes for sale has helped drive UK prices up
Home ownership has fallen to its lowest level for 30 years in England, with northern cities feeling some of the greatest pain from rising prices, new analysis shows.
The Resolution Foundation found London was far from alone in suffering from an affordability crisis.
The think-tank pointed to double-digit falls in ownership across Leeds, Sheffield and in Greater Manchester, where it said ownership levels had sunk the most, falling 14.5% from their peak of 72.4% in April 2003 to 57.9% in February this year.
The report put Outer London as seeing the second biggest drop - of 13.5% - to just under 58%.
The Foundation said the figures showed the proportion of people owning their own home had plummeted across every part of the UK since their peak in the early 2000s.
It can be mainly explained by house prices soaring during times of weaker wage growth and lower supply of new housing.
According to the latest official figures, the average UK house price stood at a record £211,230 in May - £227,000 in England.
The figure for London was £472,163, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, with annual growth running at a rate of almost 14%.
In contrast, annual salary growth had run at levels of 2% or below since the financial crisis.
The Foundation released its report a week after the English Housing Survey found two-thirds of private and social renters cited affordability as a barrier to home ownership.
Stephen Clarke, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said: "London has a well-known and fully blown housing crisis, but the struggle to buy a home is just as big a problem in cities across the North of England."
He urged Prime Minister Theresa May to follow through on her pledge of action on prices, in a bid to tackle lower ownership levels.
"These drops are more than a simple source of frustration for the millions of people who aspire to own their home.
"The shift to renting privately can reduce current living standards and future wealth, with implications for individuals and the state.
"We cannot allow other cities to edge towards the kind of housing crisis that London has been saddled with."
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