My life looks successful on Instagram. So why do millennials like me feel that we’ve failed?

… because if you’re 40 (as I am) and you don’t own a property we’ve been told we’ll be renting until we retire, writes Katherine Ormerod. But why should my not-forever home be written off as second best?

Most millennials have been priced off the property ladder (Katherine Ormerod)

News today that millennials who haven’t yet bought property will likely be renting until retirement comes as no surprise to me. We’ve all heard the buzz around Generation Rent, but the sheer scale of the social and cultural shift towards renting hasn’t yet fully resonated with most – especially amongst older homeowners. As a mid-life, middle-class renter with two kids, I can’t tell you how often I get comments saying, “why don’t you just buy?” or, “you’re pouring your cash down the drain.” But what planet are these people living on?

There’s no point sugarcoating it, renting is not always the dream. I’ve lived in 15 rental homes in my life in London, Edinburgh and Cape Town and have run the full gamut of its perils. Mushrooms growing on showers, leaks and mould that landlords never fix, antisocial neighbours and of course the horror of all renters: being kicked out because landlords have decided to sell or alternatively, chosen to increase the rent way beyond your means (the last rental increase I was offered at the end of a lease was a 67 per cent hike).

If you saw me walking down the street swinging my designer handbag (cut price from Bicester, of course, but who’s to know?) or took a glance at my bouji lifestyle on Instagram, you would simply presume that I owned the period property that I live in with my boyfriend and two sons aged two and five. The Farrow & Ball painted walls, the chic décor accessories and Fermoie fabrics all point to a stable – and comfortable – accommodation situation.

But, the story isn’t so predictable. Moving every two to three years when your children are in school and have bunk beds is very different from the carefree days when I could fit all my possessions in a black cab. I have definitely struggled with it from a self-esteem point of view – it’s just not what I’d hoped for myself or my family. I’ve been working since I was 15, so how the hell am I still here?

The rental market can be different – just take a look at Germany (Katherine Ormerod)

Fortunately, I know I’m no outlier. In the UK, those aged 35-44 (I’m 40) are almost 350 per cent more likely to be renting than the same demographic in 1993. Back in 1997, only one in 10 people my age were renting privately. It’s now a third. It might have something to do with the fact that today in the UK, less than 10 per cent of homes are affordable for those on median incomes – effectively pricing much of the middle class out of that bastion of middle-class achievement.

London is obviously a very particular example. House prices are, on average, 12 times the average capital wage – in Berlin and Munich it’s 28 per cent. It is true that I could move my family out of the city, but I would have to spend endless hours commuting in and out, leave our communities and presumably get a full-time nanny in order to make it work. There’s also the fact that I’m a Londoner and I have built a life in the city I love in my marrow. Some people crave the stillness and green of the country, I imagine retiring to Soho. The course for this horse just happens to be extremely expensive.

I don’t have a problem with renting per se. Both my parents grew up in council houses but managed to buy their own home in London’s suburbs (as a secretary and a civil service clerk that was within reach in the late 70s). But when they divorced, my dad moved into a rental and ended up as a tenant in the same apartment for 28 years. This was in Munich (where I was born) where the set-up is so wildly different and not seen as second best.

There are housing shortages in many advanced economies, but things can be different. In Germany, renters have an indefinite right to remain (unless their landlord needs to live in the property), enjoy rent increase protection and are guarded by the German Civil Code.

It’s true that renters have more responsibilities too, but across the rest of Western Europe, tenants have the right to stay in their rental enshrined – in Ireland, France and Spain for up to five years and The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland indefinitely. It is only the UK that protects us for just one year.

Many people don’t want to give up city-living – and why should they have to? (Katherine Ormerod)

I’m not one to wallow – and I’m hardly at the sharp edge of this story in my rented family home in leafy zone three. I’m currently in the middle of a three-year lease and I’ve personally decorated our home from top to bottom (with my landlord’s permission and a rent reduction to cover some of the costs).

I’m fortunate that my family passed on lots of manual skills, but I’ve also learned how to do so much in the process. Simple plumbing, tiling, curtain making, wallpapering, upholstery – and of course painting every room. People think I’m out of my tree, but if I’m going to be renting until my retirement, I’m not getting trapped in décor purgatory for my entire adult life. It’s time for attitudes to shift. Renters aren’t students or rowdy twentysomething house sharers who trash their sublets. We may not have the hundreds of thousands needed for a deposit, but we can afford a tin of paint, and make our temporary spaces beautiful places.

At 40, most of us are pretty clear on our taste – our homes are our sanctuaries too and expressing our own style to make them feel personal will support our wellbeing. My generation doesn’t need to be priced out of that too.

This is why I’ve been working on a book to give renters tips on how to temporarily create a high-end home on a budget. We didn’t do anything wrong, we were just born in a new era of housing and we need a new philosophy – and skills – to navigate it. More than anything, I want the conversation to move on from the “forever home” and catch up with our reality. Renting may very well be for life and we need not be treated – or more importantly, feel – like failures for that.

‘Your Not Forever Home’, by Katherine Ormerod, coming May 2024