Buying a home is something that the vast majority of us aspire to. And finding your forever home where you can put down roots and say you’ve found the home you’ll never move from has safety and security bound into the deal. Things are changing though. Three or four decades ago, almost everyone aspired to climb the property ladder and do so every 7 to 10 years. Today that is no longer the case.

A recent survey carried out by Safestyle UK found that over a third of people over the age of 30 have already decided they are in their ‘forever homes’ and 32% of Brits’ first homes go on to become their ‘forever home’. This, of course, may have something to do with the fact that buying a first home is difficult enough and moving is really expensive when accounting for everything – especially stamp duty.

The research also reveals exactly what it is that makes our ideal ‘forever home’, from where we live to how many bedrooms we want.

According to the findings, the number one feature that Brits are looking for in their forever home is a garage, as three in five of us (60%) said that this would be a deciding factor as to whether they purchase a property. This was followed by a family room (51%), walk-in closet (42%) and home office (39%).

Three bedrooms is the perfect property size for two in five Brits, with over a quarter (26%) also wanting a room for grandchildren to sleep in, making future family plans a clear pull when envisioning a long-term property.  And if you’re wondering what style of property takes first place, countryside homes are favoured for almost a third of us (32%). The practical option of a bungalow is also appealing, with almost a quarter (24%) stating this as a forever home preference.

Of course, location is one of the most important aspects when deciding whether a property is right and it turns out that nearly a quarter (43%) of people would prefer their forever home to be situated in the countryside and would in fact move from their current home for the rural lifestyle. However, some of us see a more coastal lifestyle in our long-term plan with over one in five (23%) prepared to move closer to the beach to settle in their forever home.

Martin Troughton, Marketing Director at Safestyle UK said: “Considering that over a third (35%) of our first homes are new builds and over a quarter (27%) are renovation projects, it seems that the key to your ‘forever home’ is personalisation.

“Personalisation allows us to cherry-pick our favourite features of a home to create somewhere we can see ourselves in forever. It’s the different bits of inspiration you take from places you’ve been and want to replicate for your own property. Windows and doors clearly have a huge impact on how we feel about a property on first impression, which is why the option of having your windows tailormade, from style to colour,  for your ‘forever home’ is really important.”

While the ‘forever home’ is in the forefront of our minds when climbing the property ladder, there are many of us that don’t just opt for that one perfect property. In fact, of those surveyed, two thirds (66%) of people aged 55 or over have owned multiple properties and 6% of respondents owned five or more properties.

So who do we see ourselves sharing our forever homes with? While we often purchase our forever home with partners, as we get older and experience divorce or become widowed, it is sad to say many end up living alone. In 1996 there were 6.6 million people in the UK living alone – by 2019, this figure had risen to 8.9million – a rise of 25 per cent.