SOARING house prices have opened up a North-South divide when it comes to home ownership, with people in Lancashire among those coming off best, a new report says.
Research from the online mortgage firm mform.co.uk found that Lancashire and Yorkshire have the highest proportion of its population in home ownership, with 70 per cent and 71 per cent respectively either paying off a mortgage or owning property outright.
The national average for home ownership stands at 65 per cent, but in London this drops to 61 per cent.
East Anglia, the North East, the South, Wales, the West and the Midlands have slightly higher rates of home ownership - all around the national average.
Despite scoring quite highly when it comes to home ownership Scotland - with 67 per cent - has the lowest rate of outright property owners.
Only 30 per cent of home owners north of the border have paid off their mortgage, compared with a national average of 36 per cent.
Chief executive of mform.co.uk, Eamonn Rice,said: "The North-South divide is traditionally about the well-off South and the poor North. But in home ownership it is the South -and particularly London - which is suffering with average asking prices for homes in London at more than £350,000."
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