New data from the government’s English Housing Survey lifts the lid on how long people stay in their homes.
Private renters – 4.7 years;
Owners with an outstanding mortgage – 8.9 years
Social renters – 12.2 years
Owners without w mortgage – 23.7 years.
The Nationwide has studied this and chief economist Robert Gardener says: “The average time spent in a home is around 14 years, although this masks significant differences across tenure types.
“Those who own their home outright tend to have lived in their current home for much longer than other tenure types, at nearly 24 years on average.
“However, there is a significant skew in the data, with around a third of those owning outright living in the same property for 30 years or more.
“Those in the private rented sector tend to have the shortest time in a property. There is also a heavy skew (although opposite to those owning outright) with around half of those in the private rented sector being resident in their current property for two years or less.
“There has been a small increase in the average residence in the private rented sector over the last decade, while those owning with a mortgage have seen a small decline.
“The latter may be partly due to homeowners with a mortgage moving more frequently, although compositional changes may also be playing a role (for example, as the population ages and more people transition into owning outright).
“Around a quarter of those owning a home with a mortgage had been in their current home for two years or less, suggesting higher first-time buyer activity in recent years may also be a factor.”
As well as considering how long households stay in a given property, there is also data on the current pattern of activity and how much churn in the housing market occurred within and between tenure types.
The data for households who moved in 2024/25 (the most recent data) indicates that moves within tenure types dominate.
Indeed, around three quarters of all moves were within the same tenure type and a quarter between tenure types.
Those moving within the private rented sector accounted for the largest share of overall activity, with 640,000 moves within the sector, nearly twice as high as the number moving within the owner-occupier sector.
