Bank of Mum and Dad helps sons more than daughters to buy a home

You’ve heard of the gender pay gap. Now, meet the gender gifting gap, where the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad pays sons more than daughters to get on the housing ladder.
The housing portal Zoopla, in a survey released on Thursday, found that 63 per cent of the 1,000 first-time buyers it asked had received financial help from their family to afford a home in the past five years — 75 per cent of which was from parents.
The average amount handed over by parents was £58,129. The average UK first-time buyer deposit is £60,100.
However, there appears to be discrimination in the heart of Britain’s baby boomer lender.
Zoopla found that, on average, female first-time beneficiaries were given or lent £51,671 towards their first property by parents, while sons got an average of £65,004, meaning men typically got £13,333 more than women.
Housing analysts, plus experts at Zoopla itself, professed bafflement. Some suggested that more traditional parents may be reluctant to encourage their daughters to leave home and so gave their sons more support.
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Marc von Grundherr, a director of the estate agent Benham and Reeves, said: “As parents, we’re incredibly protective over our daughters particularly, for example, when letting them fly the nest to live alone. Many parents simply feel more confident in letting a son climb the ladder.”
Another theory is that parents are more likely to help their daughters pay for weddings, which cost an average of £20,000, and subsidised their son’s house purchases instead.
“Many fathers of daughters will make a sizable financial contribution to the cost of a wedding and when the next life milestone of a property purchase comes along, they may feel more inclined to help their son to a greater financial extent,” von Grundherr said.
Dan Copley, a consumer expert at Zoopla, agreed. “One possible explanation is weddings. In the UK it is traditional for the bride’s family to pay.
“In addition, Ucas (the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) data shows that females are more likely to apply to and go to university than males, and parents often support this financially.
“So there is a possibility that the increased cost for weddings and universities that some families pay for daughters may mean that this is evened out somewhat by parents when it comes to helping their sons with their first home.”
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Female first-time buyers who thrived with minimal parental help suggested to The Times that women were simply better at saving than men.
The research found that the biggest single age-group to benefit from family help was the under-30s, 76 per cent of whom got assistance, while those who had help from parents bought their houses at 32 years old compared with 39 for those who did not.
A total of 66 per cent of buyers who did receive help got assistance with the deposit, while the next biggest leg-up was with mortgage payments (26 per cent), legal fees (24 per cent) and renovation costs (20 per cent).
One in five buyers, or 20 per cent, had help from non-parental family members such as grandparents, 14 per cent from siblings and 10 per cent from aunts and uncles. Those who received this assistance got £68,807 on average. Men were found to get more financial support than women here, too, by £4,814.
Zoopla added that help from the Bank of Mum and Dad frequently came with strings attached. Half of those who received assistance said that parents wanted a say in the type of home they bought and how it was decorated.
Clementine Hudson, 27, a chartered accountant, bought a one-bedroom flat last year on the Isle of Dogs, east London, for £475,000 with a £225,000 mortgage.
She saved £60,000 for the mortgage deposit herself over four years, and her parents helped only by allowing her to live rent-free with them in Oxfordshire during that period. She also benefited from an inheritance given by grandparents.
“I think women may, generally, be better at saving and a bit more careful with their money,” she said. “I was helped by the fact that I couldn’t really go out and spend my money anyway while I was living at home during Covid, but I had to show a lot of discipline to save the money I needed, which included a lot of going without things and no holidays.
“I’ve always been very disciplined with putting money away. Maybe that’s a more gender-specific thing.”
Amber Smith, 34, an advertising planner, is buying a property in Hatch End, northwest London, with her partner Shiv, who is also 34.
While Shiv’s parents gave him £50,000 for the deposit on their property, which cost about £400,000, Amber saved the money so did not need help.
“I’ve been saving for the last 10 or 12 years, so I’m going to contribute this to my half of the deposit,” she said. “I don’t have help from my parents because they never offered it and I had savings I could use.”