A THIRD of first-time buyers now depend on the Bank of Mum and Dad to get on the property ladder as the figure doubles in 20 years

Heading to Mom and Dad’s Bank, cap in hand, for help getting on the property ladder is fast becoming a modern-day rite of passage.

Official figures show that almost half of starters now depend on donations from their loved ones. The number has almost doubled in the past twenty years.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that as prices have soared, 36 per cent of people buying their first home in the 2022/2023 financial year used gifts from friends or family, while a further 9 per cent used cash used that they received from an inheritance.

In 2013/2014, just over a quarter (27 percent) received a financial gift from family and friends, and a further 8 percent used money from an inheritance. In 2003/4 only 20 percent had help and 3 percent used an inheritance.

The figures have been revealed as part of the ONS’s Milestones report, which examines key life experiences and the ages at which they are achieved.

It found that by 2022, more than half of people would own their own home by the time they were 36 years old – up from 32 in 2004.

Other key findings on another rite of passage – the age at which children leave the parental home – found that in 2021, half of children in England and Wales had moved out of their home by the age of 24, up from 21 in 2011. The number of unmarried couples between 25 and 29 years old who lived together or had a registered partnership increased to 72 percent in 2021, compared to 56 percent ten years earlier.

Kerry Gadsdon, from the Office for National Statistics, said: ‘Everyone has a different journey through adulthood, but we can use a range of data to explore key life events. We examined how these milestones of adulthood have changed over the past decade and can see how society is changing.

‘People do a lot of things later in life, such as leaving their parents’ house, getting married and retiring.

‘But not everything has changed. Most people still enter the labor market between the ages of 23 and 24 and earn the most money between the ages of 30 and 50.

‘Perhaps more surprising, given rising property prices, that in 2022 half of adults in Britain were on the property ladder at the age of 36 – around the same as in 2012.

However, the financing of a first purchase has changed.

In 2021, 80 percent more starters had help from friends and family compared to twenty years ago.

‘This highlights why this work is important: by bringing all this data together we get a snapshot of our journey through adulthood and how it is changing in the 2020s.’