Affording a house in West Midlands takes 11 years
A young couple with a child would have to save for almost 11 years before they could afford to buy a home locally, housing charity Shelter has said.
Research for the housing charity looked at average wages, house prices, rents and spending on essentials to show the challenge faced by those trying to save for a home of their own.
In the West Midlands the charity said it would take a couple without children 5.8 years to save up and 10.8 years if they had one child.
Single people would take 11.6 years on average.
Emma Reynolds, Labour's shadow housing minister and MP for Wolverhampton North East, said: "For a whole generation of young people and families the aspiration of buying their own home is becoming a distant dream. A record number of young people are still living at home with their parents in their twenties and thirties because they can't get on the housing ladder."
She said one in four young people were living with their parents in their twenties and thirties but on current trends this is set to rise to nearly five million by 2020.
Shelter's chief executive, Campbell Robb, said: "Home ownership used to be within most people's reach, but the rising shortage of affordable homes has pushed house prices up so high that for millions of young people it's now just a fantasy, however how hard they work or save.
"Parents are right to be worried. The reality is that unless we get a grip on the housing shortage soon, children today could spend decades paying out dead money in expensive rents, or living at home well into adulthood with little hope of planning for their own families.
"Successive governments have announced scheme after scheme promising to help first time buyers, but these have just papered over the cracks. The only way to make sure young people have a hope of a home of their own is for politicians to roll up their sleeves and commit to building enough truly affordable homes."
