Scottish household survey 2019: annual report

3 Housing

Housing Tenure from 1999 to 2019

The total number of households in Scotland has increased by 15 per cent from 2.17 million households in 1999 to 2.50 million households in 2019.

The proportion of households in the private rented sector grew steadily from five per cent in 1999 (120,000 households) to 15 per cent in 2016 (370,000 households), an increase of a quarter of a million households. The proportion has since dropped slightly to 14 per cent in 2018, to stand at 340,000 households, after which it has remained at a similar size in the latest year 2019.

The percentage of households in owner occupation grew from 61 per cent in 1999 to 66 per cent in 2005, was stable at around 65 and 66 per cent until 2009 but then declined by an estimated 90,000 households between 2009 and 2014 to 60 per cent. The level has since remained around 61 and 62 per cent each year, but has grown back in absolute numbers by 80,000 between 2014 and 2019.

Within this, the steady decline in the proportion of younger households aged between 16 and 34 in owner occupation, which fell from 53 per cent in 1999 to 30 per cent in 2014, has reversed over recent years, rising to 38 per cent in 2019, an increase of approximately 50,000 younger households in owner occupation between 2014 and 2019.

The percentage of households in the social rented sector declined from 32 per cent in 1999 to 23 per cent in 2007, an estimated drop of 150,000 households, but has since stabilised and has remained at between 22 and 24 per cent of all households since then, which represents an estimated increase of approximately 50,000 households since 2007.

Characteristics of households by tenure, 2019

Owned outright properties (estimated 820,000 households and 1,510,000 people):

• Most properties were houses (83 per cent).
• Nearly three quarters (74 per cent) had a highest income householder (HIH) who was aged 60 or over.
• Over half (52 per cent) contained adults who had lived at their address for more than 20 years.
• Over eight in 10 (84 per cent) contained adults who did not expect to move from their current property in the future.
• Three-quarters (75 per cent) of households stated that they manage well financially, a figure higher than all other tenures.

Owned with a mortgage or loan (estimated 720,000 households and 1,940,000 people):

• Almost eight in 10 (78 per cent) were houses.
• The majority (93 per cent) had a HIH who was aged under 60.
• Six in 10 (60 per cent) did not contain children.
• Eighty-five per cent of adults were employed, higher than the proportion of employed adults in all other tenures.
• Three-quarters (78 per cent) had a net annual household income of more than £25,000, whilst 61 per cent of households stated that they manage well financially.

Private rented properties (estimated 340,000 households and 680,000 people):

• Sixty-four per cent were flats.
• The majority were located in urban areas (49 per cent in large urban areas and 29 per cent in other urban areas).
• Sixty-three per cent of adults had lived at their address for less than two years.
• Just over half (55 per cent) of adults recorded their ethnicity as White Scottish, which is lower than all other tenures. Almost one-fifth (18 per cent) recorded their ethnicity as White 'Other' (i.e. not White Scottish, Other British, or Polish), whilst 6 per cent recorded their ethnicity as Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British, figures which are both higher than other tenures.
• Over six in 10 rented direct from a landlord (62 per cent) as opposed to through a letting agent, falling to almost a half (51 per cent) of households in which the respondent had been living at that address for under a year. (Based on 2018 data).
• Almost eight in 10 paid a deposit when they started to rent their property (78 per cent), rising to almost nine in 10 (87 per cent) for households in which the respondent had been living at that address for under a year. (Based on 2018 data).
• Almost half (45 per cent) of households stated that they manage well financially.

Social rented properties (local authority and housing association properties) (estimated 590,000 households and 1,170,000 people):

• Forty-nine per cent of local authority and 62 per cent of housing association properties were flats.
• Forty-two per cent of local authority properties and 54 per cent of housing association homes were located in the 20 per cent most deprived areas.
• Six in 10 adults were not in employment (60 per cent for both local authority and housing association properties). The proportion of adults in social rented properties who were permanently sick or disabled was higher than those in all other tenure types (15 per cent of social rented properties compared to between one and three per cent in other tenures), and a further eight per cent were unemployed and seeking work.
• Twenty-eight per cent of social rented households stated that they manage well financially, a figure lower than all other tenures.
• Around half of adults stated that they would prefer to remain in social rented accommodation (51 per cent). Over a third (39 per cent) would most like to live in owner occupier accommodation.

Households on housing lists:

An estimated 130,000 (five per cent) of households were on a housing list in 2019, with a further 20,000 (0.7 per cent) of households estimated to have applied for social housing using a choice based letting system or similar within the last year, figures which are similar to those for the two previous years 2017 and 2018.

Of the households on a housing list in 2019, two thirds (67 per cent) were on a single list and over half (56 per cent) had been on a housing list for three years or less.

For around a third (32 per cent) of social rented households on a housing list, the main reason was to move to a bigger or smaller property. The main reason for private rented households was that they could not afford current housing / would like cheaper housing (30 per cent of private rented households on a housing list). The main reason for owner occupier households to be on a list was to move to a property away from parents or partner (36 per cent).

Satisfaction with housing and rating of neighbourhood as a place to live:

Nine in 10 households (90 per cent) reported that they were very or fairly satisfied with their housing in 2019, with 52 per cent being very satisfied and 39 per cent being fairly satisfied, similar proportions to the previous year 2018.

This differs between tenures, with 95% of owner occupier households being either very or fairly satisfied with their housing, compared to 84% of households in the private rented sector and 81% of households in social rented homes.

Over nine in ten households (94 per cent) rated their neighbourhood as either a very or fairly good place to live, with 86 per cent of social rented households responding with this rating, compared to 94 per cent of private rented households and 97 per cent of owner occupier households.