and you are looking in for every week and month that goes by, the dream of homeownership recedes further into the distance. the average age of first time buyers has been rising continuously. the proportion of young people who can afford to buy their own home has been falling. between 2005 2016, the proportion of 2534 year olds that owned their own home fell by 20%, whereas in most other countries, it has been rising. it is true that we still have higher rates of overall homeownership just ahead of france and just ahead of germany. and it is true that we are building more as fast as we can after a sustained decline in home ownership rates in the labour government, which is now starting to go back up thanks to our support forfirst time starting to go back up thanks to our support for first time buyers and also building more homes. last year, there were 400,001st time buyers of property which was a 20 year high. 400,000 property which was a 20 year high. 400,000 first time
mortgage guarantee scheme. we would like to go further, so today i can announce a comprehensive review of the mortgage market. reporting back this autumn, it will tell how we can give our nation of aspiring homeowners better access to low deposit mortgages and what our own mortgage industry can learn from counterparts around the world who have alternative ways of offering finance, managing risk and bolting the door to ownership. and just as no generation should be locked out of home ownership because of where they were born, so nobody should be barred from that same dream simply because of where they live now. for four decades, it has been possible for council home tenants to use a discount to buy the property they live in. 0ver that time, almost 2 million people have been helped into homeownership. they have switched identities and psychology from being dependent on the state for every