Housing and pensions
Lower housing costs, greater financial security – could pension assets open up home ownership to lower and moderate-earning British households?
For working-age people across the UK, finding a secure and affordable home can be hard. It’s a crucial determinant of financial security. And the implications of not having one are wide-ranging.
With lower housing costs, less worry and higher quality homes come better living standards, better health, and better outcomes. But for low-to-moderate income households, choices around where to live are reduced by cost and availability. Industry and policy research consistently finds that housing security is a cornerstone of financial and wider wellbeing yet across all working-age groups, fewer households own their own home than those of the same age twenty years ago. More people are living in privately rented homes, where they face the greatest uncertainty around the affordability and security of their living arrangements.
People have been asking for some time now if pensions could be part of the answer. This could mean allowing people to put some of their own pension saving towards buying a home, or greater investment from pension funds in the supply of social and affordable homes. But in both cases, we need evidence to understand if the ideas could work.
In 2025, we began a year-long programme of research to build the evidence around what this proposal might mean for households in the UK.
Our research addressed three key questions:
- Would people be better off if they use their pension savings to buy a home?
- How many people might be able to use their pension to buy a home?
- How do people feel about a pension access scheme, and would they use it?
We consulted widely with experts from the housing and pensions industries and with the public themselves through surveys and a discussion forum. We have undertaken data analysis and modelling and looked at what we can learn from other countries, developing not only evidence that reflects both sides of the debate, but also a series of important questions that remain to be answered about any potential model.
