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- 1. Navigate to Main facts and figures section
- 2. Navigate toDeposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity section
- 3. Navigate toDeposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity and socio-economic group section
- 4. Navigate to Methodology section
- 5. Navigate to Data sources section
- 6. Navigate to Download the data section
1. Main facts and figures
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White British first-time buyers paid a smaller deposit for a home on average compared with first-time buyers from all other ethnic groups combined – however, the number of households surveyed was too small to draw firm conclusions
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among people working in routine and manual occupations, White British first-time buyers paid a larger deposit than first-time buyers from all other ethnic groups combined
Things you need to know
Compared with White British households, ethnic minority households tend to:
- be younger
- have lived in England for a shorter time
- be located in urban areas
- live in larger households
- live in rented accommodation
To ensure that there is a large enough number of ethnic minority households to produce reliable findings, the data is drawn from the English Housing Survey (EHS) 2014/15 and 2015/16.
Information about households available from the EHS Headline and Annual Reports is normally based on a 12-month period (April to March) of the survey. Because of this some of the statistics cited here may not match those in the Headline and Annual Reports.
The commentary only includes findings based on subgroups of at least 30 households to ensure that we report reliable findings.
The EHS is a ‘sample survey’: it collects information from a random sample of the population to make generalisations (reach 'findings’) about the total population.
For example, EHS findings might include the percentage of households who get help from their family to buy their own home.
The commentary for this data only includes reliable, or ‘statistically significant’, findings.
Findings are statistically significant when we can be confident that they are reflective of the total population rather than just the survey sample.
What the data measures
This data measures the average deposit paid by first-time buyers when buying a home in England, broken down by ethnicity.
First-time buyers are home buyers who, when surveyed in 2014/15 or 2015/16, had bought a home for the first time in the previous 3 years.
The figures are drawn from the 2014/15 and 2015/16 English Housing Survey (EHS). The survey involves face-to-face interviews with about 13,300 randomly selected households every year.
These are used to make estimates for the 22.6 million households in England as a whole.
The EHS is a national survey of people's housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of homes in England.
The information relates to households. A household is one person or a group of people (not necessarily related) who have the accommodation as their only or main residence. If they are a group they also must share cooking facilities and a living room, sitting room, or dining area.
The EHS has ethnicity information on the household reference person as well as all other members of the household. The household reference person is the person in whose name the dwelling is owned or rented or who is otherwise responsible for the accommodation.
Some households contain people from different ethnic backgrounds; in these circumstances, we have used the ethnic background of the household reference person to define the ethnic background of the household.
Nearly all the household reference persons – more than 99.8% interviewed – provided information on their ethnicity.
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about specific or broad ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following 2 broad categories:
- White British
- Other – all other ethnic groups (including White ethnic minorities and all other ethnic minorities)
2. Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity
| Ethnicity | £ |
|---|---|
| White British | 44,410 |
| All other ethnic groups | 49,423 |
Download table data for ‘Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Deposits paid by first-time buyers Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
- White British first-time buyers paid a smaller deposit on average than first-time buyers from all other ethnic groups combined – however, the number of households surveyed was too small to draw firm conclusions
3. Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity and socio-economic group
| Ethnicity | Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations | Intermediate occupations | Routine and manual occupations |
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | |
| White British | 50,205 | 34,233 | 34,935 |
| All other ethnic groups | 72,209 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 17,230 |
Download table data for ‘Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity and socio-economic group’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity and socio-economic group’ (CSV)
Summary of Deposits paid by first-time buyers Deposits paid by first-time buyers by ethnicity and socio-economic group Summary
This data shows that:
-
White British first-time buyers in routine and manual occupations paid a larger deposit (around £35,000) than those from all other ethnic groups combined (around £17,000)
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White British first-time buyers in higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations paid a smaller deposit on average than those from all other ethnic groups combined – however, the number of households surveyed was too small to draw firm conclusions
4. Methodology
The EHS consists of:
- face-to-face interviews with a random sample of about 13,300 households a year
- a physical inspection of the homes of about 6,000 of the interviewed households – these are selected at random and carried out by a surveyor
The surveyor also inspects a random sample of about 200 properties identified by the interviewer as vacant.
Weighting:
Weighting is used to adjust the results of a survey to make them representative of the population.
For example, a survey which contains 25% females and 75% males will not accurately reflect the views of the general population, which we know is around 50% male and 50% female.
Statisticians rebalance or ‘weight’ the survey results to more accurately represent the general population. This helps to make them more reliable.
Survey weights are usually applied to make sure the survey sample has broadly the same gender, age, ethnic and geographic make up as the general population.
In the EHS, weighting makes the results more representative of the 22.6 million households in England.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
Estimates based on less than 30 households have not been included in these statistics, because small numbers of households make it impossible to draw meaningful conclusions. The analysis has been done by binary classification only where broken down by socio-economic group, income, region or age. This prevents small numbers appearing in the table and avoids the potential for identification of individuals.
More detailed data, including some potentially disclosive data, is protected by a range of disclosure controls. See the guidance on English Housing Survey: datasets for information accessing this data.
Rounding
Estimates in the charts and tables are given to the nearest whole number. You can get more detailed estimates to 1 decimal place if you download the data.
Quality and methodology information
5. Data sources
Source
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Note on corrections or updates
Information published in the EHS headline report and other annual reports is usually based on a 12-month period, rather than the 2 years’ combined data used here. As a result, the statistics shown here may not match those in the EHS reports.
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The English Housing Survey is a continuous national survey commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It collects information about people’s housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England.
6. Download the data
This files contains: ethnicity, year, NS-SEC, value, standard deviation, sample size