£102,000 DEPOSIT TO BUY FIRST HOME Fortune needed for an affordable loan
VICTORIA Derbyshire said interviewing Wham! star Andrew Ridgeley for Newsnight this week was a “pinch-me moment”.
Victoria, 54, posted a selfie with Andrew, 60, on Instagram and told how she saw the band aged 15 at the Manchester Apollo.
She said: “I wrote about it in my diary, no detail was too small, I had to add extra sheets of paper.”
Ridgeley was interviewed about the Netflix documentary Wham!
MIKEY SMITH
FIRST-TIME buyers now need to stump up a deposit of £102,000 just to get an affordable mortgage, a study has shown.
The huge sum is the average amount they need to put down if they want to keep payments at the same level as a year ago, before interest rates rocketed.
Then, people trying to get on the property ladder paid average deposits of £30,000.
With the typical first home costing £253,000, that meant taking out a mortgage of £223,000. Last year, when interest rates on a two-year fixed mortgage were 2.65%, average monthly payments were £1,017. But to keep payments at that same affordable level now – with rates at 6.47% – Labour analysis reveals buyers need to put down £102,000.
Interest rates rose for the 13th time in a row last month to 5% and are expected to rise again on August 3. Labour is urging the Government to make its plans to protect struggling mortgage holders mandatory. It says all lenders must bring in measures, such as letting people switch to interest-only payments.
But the Tories agreed their plans with only the biggest lenders – so 2m households, who have mortgages with smaller firms, could miss out. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Labour will not stand by as millions face a mortgage catastrophe. Our mandatory plan to ease the Tory mortgage bombshell offers help now.”
Labour has also slammed the Tories for failing to build enough houses. Ms Reeves said: “Labour will build more homes and get more first-time buyers on the housing ladder.”
The Treasury said the Government is “committed to helping first-time buyers” and has built “tens of thousands of affordable homes”, extended its Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, and doubled the nilrate band for stamp duty to £250k.
DEPOSIT INCREASES