According to Nationwide research, the definition of under-occupied is having two or more spare bedrooms and this has been going up over time between 2013 and 2023.
The report added that 87% of owner-occupied properties in England have at least one spare bedroom.
Nationwide added that in the private rented sector, only 16% of properties are under-occupied, whereas 8% of properties in the social rented sector are considered overcrowded.
Housing stock up 9%
Over the past decade total housing stock in the UK has grown by 9% over the last decade to 25.4 million in 2023.
The report said that this was slightly above the rate of population growth in England over the same period, which was 7%.
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Around 16.3 million dwellings are owner-occupied, and 19% are privately rented. The remaining 16% is social rent housing.
Looking at owner-occupier housing, around 29% are semi-detached properties, with 27% being terraced, and 25% are detached properties. Around 10% are flats and 9% are bungalows.
In the private rented sector, 42% of properties are flats and 34% are terraced properties. Around 16% are semi-detached properties.
From a social rent perspective, approximately 45% are flats, 27% are terraced properties, and 17% are semi-detached properties.
Typical property sizes, looking at floor space, have also risen over the last decade, going from 95.3m2 to 96.2m2 between 2013 and 2023.
Terraced houses have seen the largest increase at 3.6%, followed by semi-detached properties at 2.2% and bungalows at 0.6%. Flats fell in size by 1.7% over the period, while detached houses contracted by 0.6%.
Decarbonising housing stock ‘critical’
Andrew Harvey, Nationwide’s senior economist, said that decarbonising and adapting housing stock is “critical” if the UK is to meet its 2050 emissions targets.
He noted that residential buildings make up around 15% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The report said that there was “significant variation” in the energy efficiency of housing stock across different tenures, with around half of properties in the private rented and owner-occupier sectors rated A to C, compared to 72% in the social rented sector.
“Over the past 10 years, energy efficiency has improved across the stock thanks to the higher efficiency ratings of newly built properties and the improvements carried out on many existing homes, such as loft and cavity wall insulation,” Harvey said.
He continued that low carbon technologies, such as air source heat pumps, are “expected to play a greater role in future in terms of decarbonising and improving the efficiency of the housing stock”.
However, Harvey said that they are still quite a “rare feature” with only 276,000 dwellings in England using a heat pump as the primary heating system, which is around 1.1% of the total stock.
“A higher proportion of rural dwellings have a heat pump, 7.6%, compared to 0.5% of urban dwellings, which probably reflects more limited access to mains gas networks,” he said.
“There is a much wider uptake of solar panels, with 1.5 million dwellings in England having photovoltaic (PV) panels – nearly 6% of dwellings. Over 15% of properties built in the last 10 years have PV. Another feature that is likely to become more widespread over time is access to electric vehicle (EV) charging.
“Currently, 1.8 million dwellings have access to an EV charge point – around 7% of the total stock. Again, this tends to be a feature of more recently built properties, with around 20% of dwellings built post-2012 having access to an EV charge point,” he noted.
