First-time buyers team up to cope with house prices
NEARLY two-thirds of people taking their first step on to the property ladder are doing so with someone else, a report claims.
The average first-time home cost £288,136 last year, down from £302,008 in 2022 – but still 6.7 times the typical UK salary of £43,257.
And the average deposit was £53,414 – some £21,000 more than a decade earlier, according to analysis by lending giant Halifax.
Some 63% of first-time mortgages taken out last year involved at least two people, it found.
Affordable
Many of the most affordable properties were in Scotland, Halifax said, topped by Inverclyde where the average home cost 2.6 times average local pay of £41,598.
At the other end of the scale, first-timers in Islington, North London, face property values of 10.6 times their average salary of £57,548.
Across Britain, terraced homes made up 30% of mortgages for first homes, semidetached houses accounted for 29%, flats 27%, detached homes 10% and bungalows 3%.
Flats have increased in popularity in the last decade while terraced homes have declined, Halifax added. The age of the average first-time buyer last year was 32, varying from 27 in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley to 37 in Slough, Berks.
Kim Kinnaird, director of Halifax Mortgages, said: “The overall fall in house prices in 2023 will go some way to helping people get on the ladder.
“But these buyers are still dependent on a steady supply of properties in their price range, while faced with the pressure of saving for a deposit when rent and living costs are high.”
The bank’s analysis was based on its own data as well as that for Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland, which are part of the same group.
Lloyds Banking Group was the UK’s biggest mortgage lender in 2022.