We recently ran a basic poll on the Scottish Referendum with 500 tenants in Scotland’s main cities and it was interesting to see a strong link between voting choice and perceived prospects for home ownership.
Around 2/3 of those voting Yes believe their prospects of home ownership would be better in an Independent Scotland and over 2/3 of those voting No believe prospects would be worse.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey suggests the issue of home ownership is important to if not identifiable as the determining factor in their respective decisions.
Overall, renters favour Independence with 58% of those who have made up their mind indicating they will vote Yes. A significant 10% remain undecided, consistent with other wider polls.
The survey also revealed that over 80% of renters would like to own their own home just over 5 years since the property crash.
Support for independence amongst renters varied between regions with Glasgow & Aberdeen identified as most likely to make a yes vote at 65% each and Edinburgh the least likely at 55%.
The findings will come as little surprise to many given the private rental sector has a young demographic profile which has an above average support for Independence.
Additionally, the overwhelming majority of renters would ideally like to own their property and the majority of yes voters seem to believe Independence will help them get onto the property ladder.
The survey also revealed that engagement in politics throughout the country to be at an extraordinarily high level within a young demographic with respondents on both sides providing detailed but contrasting arguments for their views on their prospects for home ownership.
The Yes camp pointed to greater control over the economy and job creation as positive factors towards home ownership and the No camp cited more expensive mortgages, decreased finance availability and a general negative picture for the economy.
