Only the wealthiest of the next generation will be able to get on the housing ladder if current trends continue, a housing body has warned.

The National Housing Federation says that first-time buyers now have to pay, in real terms, ten times the deposit needed in the early 1980s.

Its report, Broken Market, Broken Dreams, reveals that first-time buyers today have to earn more, borrow more, find a larger deposit and rely more on family wealth than even a generation ago.

The report found that, taking inflation into account:

• The average first-time buyer today needs a £30,000 deposit, almost ten times the deposit required in the early 1980s.

• First-time buyers have an average income of £36,500, compared to their average salary in the 1980s of £20,000.

• A first-time buyer has to borrow 3.4 times their annual income on average, compared to first-time buyers in 1979 who needed to borrow just 1.7 times their income.

• Two-thirds of first-time buyers receive financial help from parents – a figure that has doubled in five years.

In separate polling by YouGov on behalf of the National Housing Federation, almost 80% of people in England think it is harder to own a home now than it was for their parents’ generation.

Eight out of ten people polled also did not believe that any of the main political parties deal with housing effectively.