The British fondness for owning property may be long-established but new research suggests it is beginning to trail off rapidly, especially in London, where the appetite for home ownership has been curbed by ever-rising house prices.

Yolande Barnes, head of research at Savills, the agency behind the study, says: “We have come to accept the popular wisdom that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’ and, unlike our European cousins, we are a nation of homeowners. But it turns out that the UK is much more like Europe than we thought.”

Of all property in the UK, 62 per cent is owner-occupied, still higher than Germany at 56.2 per cent but lower than France at 63 per cent, Italy at 72.5 per cent, and the EU average at 73.5 per cent. Though falling, it is still well above US cities – research carried out in 2011 puts the rate in New York at 31.9 per cent, according to the city’s department of housing.