The average deposit may have increased by 91% over the last ten years, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped the average first time buyer. In fact, the number of first-time buyers has reached a ten-year high of over 365,000.
The average first time buyer is aged 30 and has an income of £41,000 (either jointly or individually).
More recent increases might be attributable to buy to let landlords selling off their cheaper and less profitable houses.
Although the average home is now 21% more expensive than it was ten years ago, at £212,079, the number of first time buyers has steadily increased over the last six years. Last year alone, the number of people taking out their first mortgage rose by 6%.
Despite this positivity around the UK, London and the North of England have seen a different picture.
London’s first time buyers have largely been priced out of the property market, and the number of first time buyers has decreased by 26% over the last ten years. With the average London property now over £480,000, high deposits and a lack of affordable homes to buy, this is hardly surprising.
The North of England has seen a 5% drop in first time buyers in ten years.
Half of all homes bought with a mortgage are now bought by a first time buyer, an increase of 36% in ten years. The Halifax has said that the number of first time buyers is now almost at the level it was before the 2008 recession, when numbers dropped from 359,900 to 192,300 the following year.