Mortgages 'not used to buy dream homes'
Published On 6 July 2007
People in the UK are so desperate to get a mortgage and onto the property ladder that they are buying homes that they do not like, new research suggests.Data gathered by Alliance & Leicester shows that only two million people in the UK have used a mortgage to buy what they describe as their 'dream home'.
Instead, when asked to rate how they fell about their home on a scale of one to ten, the average was around 5.5 - meaning that many people are living in 'halfway houses' and waiting until they can afford something better with their mortgage.
In London, just three per cent of people revealed that they were completely happy with their property.
"It seems people are happy to move into a property that isn't their ideal, in order to move up the property ladder and reap the benefit of rising house prices," explained Stephen Leonard, director of mortgages at the lender.
"More and more people seem to be looking for property on the basis of an investment, rather than buying their dream home."
Recent figures suggest that rising house prices and interest rates are preventing more people from getting mortgages, forcing them to live in rented accommodation for longer.
