Millions risk being “locked out” of the housing market, the National Housing Federation has warned.
A forecast for the group has predicted home ownership will fall to its lowest level since the mid-1980s over the next ten years.
Oxford Economics predicted forecast a 21.3% rise in average house prices in England over the next five years, and a 19.8% rise in renting costs.
The National Housing Federation’s chief executive David Orr said: "Home ownership is increasingly becoming the preserve of the wealthy and, in parts of the country like London, the very wealthy. And for the millions locked out of the property market the options are becoming increasingly limited as demand sends rents rising sharply and social homes waiting lists remain at record levels."
The study predicted the majority of those living in London will rent by 2021.
The federation’s director Ruth Davison said fewer than half the number of homes needed were being built.
“People are living longer and getting married later, and unfortunately people break up. We need more homes than we have ever needed before”, she told the BBC on Tuesday morning.
Davison called on the government to “make a renewed commitment to housing”: “[They should] build homes of all tenure, to allow all types of housing to be built."
But the government’s housing minister Grant Shapps said it was “hellishly difficult” to predict what would happen in the housing market.
“We’ve not been building enough homes”, he told the BBC. Shapps said he hoped to reverse the trend through planning reforms. “We’re releasing enough government land to build Leicester twice over across the country”, he added.