Home really is where the heart is

New research for Santander Mortgages has found that a third of British adults (31%) now live in the town where they grew up, and nearly two thirds (63%) still live within 50 miles of their childhood home.

Displaying even stronger loyalty to where they grew up, nearly one in five adults (17%) has never moved away from their home town or city.

Some of us, though, have a stronger affinity to where we grew up than others. The idea of the proud Yorkshireman seems to be ringing true, with those in Yorkshire and Humberside almost twice as likely as those in the South East and the East of England to be living in the towns where they grew up; 41% of people in Yorkshire and Humberside are currently living in their childhood town, compared to just 22% and 19% in the South East and East of England respectively.

Andy Smith at Santander, said: "With all the talk of a mobile, cosmopolitan Britain, it's interesting to see that when it comes to the crunch the majority of us prefer to settle down close to where we grew up.

"There are a whole host of factors at play. For first-time buyers in particular it's nice to have the security and familiarity of your childhood home town, and it obviously helps to know something about the local housing market! It would be nice, though, to think that some of us have a degree of loyalty to the towns we grew up in."