Despite the government’s pledge to create one million new homeowners by 2010 figures released by the ODPM show that the amount of people who own their own home dropped last year by around 400,000. The Survey of English Housing 2003-04 reveals that there were an estimated 14.5 million homeowners in England compared to 14.9 million in 2002-03. Both figures represented 71% of all households. The figures also showed that of the 5.5 million first time owners, 945,000 had purchased their home since 2000 36% of which were newly formed households, 39% were previously private renters and 7% were former social renters. The remaining 18% were former sitting tenants, including both social and private renters who had purchased the home they were occupying as tenants.