Meet the ‘guppies’: the young go-getters who’ve turned their backs on home ownership

The young are turning their backs on home ownership, once a dream for many Britons, as rising costs make it ever harder to get a foot on the housing ladder.

Confronted by 40-year mortgages or complex shared ownership schemes, it is hardly a surprise that Generation Rent isn’t exactly enchanted by the prospect of home ownership.

At the beginning of the 2010s there were twice as many mortgage holders as private renters, but by 2021 the gap had narrowed dramatically. The number of households renting in England and Wales doubled between 2001 and 2021, the last census showed: it jumped to 5 million, despite increasing rents.

The average rent demanded outside London was £1,231 a month across all property types in the second quarter of 2023, and £2,567 in London.

Renting offers flexibility and landlords are typically liable for repairs and maintenance during the tenancy, but renters frequently complain about poor service and homes in disrepair.

Despite these hazards, many renters seem happy never to buy – or at least not yet. The rise of so-called “Guppies”, those who have “given up on property”, including 38pc of those under 40 who earn more than £60,000, is a direct contrast to the “yuppies” of the 1980s.

Just one in five of the younger generation thinks they will “definitely” be able to buy a house within the next decade, according to research from the property website Zoopla.

‘You have less freedom if you buy your home. It’s not something I am looking to do’ 

For 30-year-old Chris, who rents a two-bedroom house in Burnley, Lancashire, after relocating for work, buying just doesn’t make sense.

“Renting was always an easy option and it will be for however long I choose to rent for. You can move about – you can’t do that if you’re fixed in a contract with a property for 20 or more years,” he says.

He previously rented a studio flat in Oldham and was surprised to find that his rent fell when he moved.

“It was cheaper. It was a bit bizarre as I was upsizing but it was actually cheaper,” he says.

Chris says the freedom of having extra money available as opposed to paying off a mortgage was one of the key reasons behind his decision not to buy.

“You have less freedom, you’re building up equity and it’s great to build up that equity in order to sell a property and make a profit on it and have that security. But it’s not something I am looking to do,” he says.

‘Thanks to short-term lets and remote working we can travel the world’

For others, the decision not to buy has offered the chance to travel the world thanks to short-term lets and careful choice of accommodation.

For Hayley Knight, 35, who runs her own public relations firm, the ability to work from anywhere has released her from long-term renting in London.

Since 2021 she and her husband have been hopping from place to place, spending around a month in each. They currently live in Bosnia but have lived across Europe and in Sri Lanka.

She says putting down roots “never really appealed” and growing up outside a functional family unit meant her ideals differed from the traditional home ownership dream.

Knight says she and her husband had been paying £1,300 a month for a home in London, but now live in nicer properties and move when they choose to.

“We can want the house with the pool and the nice bathroom and kitchen and so on, but we get that anyway,” she says. “We can choose that in the apartments we rent. We have flexibility, we have choice, we’re not stuck in the same property and we’re not tied to anything – that’s what I love about it.”

Their unanchored lifestyle hasn’t been without its difficult moments, she says, including a recent Friday night scare in Lisbon when their booking for an apartment was cancelled at the last minute.

“What we do is book things very far in advance to get the best prices and trying to find something on the level of the apartment we had lost last minute and in Lisbon in the middle of the summer just wasn’t possible,” she says, describing a tense six-hour struggle to find a place to stay.

While Knight and her husband are not completely averse to buying, she says they’re unlikely to return to Britain for good, as they have “fallen out of love” with it.

“You see what you can get [abroad] and you hear stories of other travellers who have bought property in countries and it is remarkable how much more you can get for your money. I don’t know what our plans are yet. I think we’ll probably be travelling for a while. We’ve got plans for at least the next couple of years,” she added.

‘Owning a home is not a good enough investment’

Siam Kidd, a 37-year-old investor and former RAF pilot, lives in a house worth £2.2m with a 25-acre garden but pays just £3,250 a month in rent. He says he doesn’t believe property offers homeowners a high enough return on capital.

“If you have a job that pays £20,000 to £50,000 a year and have 2.2 kids, maybe buying a house is the best solution, but my setup is different,” he says.

His decision is not a popular one in his household, however.

“Every year for the past 14 years my wife has said ‘Let’s buy a house, let’s buy a house’,” he laughs. “We gently butt heads on this topic; she wants a house to settle down in, all that stuff.”

But he says he refuses to consider home ownership until he believes the market conditions are right – and until he is able to make a big enough return on his capital.

‘If we buy a property, we won’t get one of this quality’

Phil Horton, 34, and his wife, Kelly, 32, are renting in Stratford, east London, with their one-month-old son and cavapoo dog.

They have returned from his wife’s native California and Horton, who works from home as a mainly self-employed project manager, was keen to move to east London.

They live in a three-bedroom flat in Coppermaker Square, a development near the Olympic park and a large shopping centre.

“It’s got this community feel to it, it’s got all the amenities, it’s got the shared workspace, the social space on the top floor and the rooftop garden, where you can meet people and get to know them,” Horton says.

“Kelly didn’t have that natural friendship group, so that was really important to us. The amenities are also really attractive, really beautiful, the spa and gym.”

He says one of the reasons they’re happy to keep renting is how much they like where they live.

“If we were going to buy a property, we wouldn’t get one of this quality,” he adds. “We wouldn’t get the swimming pool or the gym. When you rent you don’t need to pay the service charge you would pay if you were buying.”

Flexibility is also key for Horton, as he knows that if he struggles to find work for a year the family can easily downsize.

“Once I buy, I know that puts a bit more pressure on my work,” he says, adding that he enjoys “having that flexibility that I am signing up for a rental agreement for a year – if my circumstances change for any reason around my employment I could move, I could do something different, I could downsize”.

He says that while starting a family has changed his long-term goals, thinking about buying is still a few years down the line.

“I think we will rent a little bit longer, because it’s very difficult to buy in London,” he adds. “I think our long-term aspiration is to buy eventually because we’ve got a baby now and we want to start building those roots.”

Horton says it’s the ability to save a deposit that worries him, rather than being approved for a mortgage, as the couple currently feel financially stable.

“At the moment I feel safe, but it’s a hard question to answer for when my tenancy’s up, because the economy has changed a lot in the past year and I don’t know what the prices will be,” he says.

“Does that price anybody out? I’ll have to wait and see. In the worst-case scenario we would go down to a two-bed.”

Have you turned your back on home ownership? Join the conversation in the comments section below