Four out of 10 young adults say they will not settle down until they can buy a family home, housing campaign group finds

Couples are delaying getting married and starting families because they cannot afford to buy their own homes, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by a housing campaign group.

Four out of 10 young adults have said they will not settle down until they can buy their own house.

A further 7% of people aged between 18 and 30 said they had put off marriage because they could not afford to buy a property or were saving up for one.

"We are in danger of locking a whole generation of young people out of the housing market because prices are simply too high," said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which commissioned the survey of 1,096 young adults who did not own their own home.

"A chronic shortage of new affordable homes has sent prices rocketing over the last decade, well out of reach of the vast majority of first-time buyers."

Almost two-thirds of those questioned said high prices were to blame for them being unable to buy a house. Just over 40% said banks had refused to offer a mortgage. One in five said uncertainty over the economy was another key factor in their decision.

A record 4.5 million people are on housing waiting lists in England. The federation says rising unemployment and repossessions have fuelled demand for affordable housing during the economic downturn. Despite the growing need for cheaper homes, housebuilding has fallen to its lowest level since 1923. The average first-time buyer's home costs around £135,000, more than 4.2 times the average wage. In 1990 the average was around £46,000, 2.5 times the average wage.

Damian Ross, a 33-year-old IT consultant in Leeds who proposed to his girlfriend two years ago, said they had decided not to get married until they can afford their own home.

"We only want a modest wedding but feel we can't justify the cost of that until we have saved up enough to buy somewhere to live together," he said. "But the cost of a home seems to constantly soar upwards while our savings, with interest rates so low, seem to shrink. We want to be responsible but in attempting that, I feel like our lives have been put on hold."

The federation has said the government will struggle to build even half its target of 1m affordable homes by 2020 if the housing budget is not exempted from public spending.

The group has called on the three main political parties to grant housing the same "untouchable" status as health, education and crimefighting, and to protect it from spending cuts in order to address what it says is a crisis.

• House prices
• Property
• Family finances
• Marriage
• Housing
• Housing market