How first-time buyers are ‘driving’ housing market

THE proportion of first-time buyers snapping up homes has overtaken the number of existing home-owners moving house for the first time since 1995, analysis has found.

Across the UK there were 170,000 home-movers in the first half of 2018 compared with 175,500 first-time buyers, according to the Lloyds Bank Homemover Review, which only looked at properties bought with a mortgage.

It was the first six-month period when the proportion of first-time buyers had been higher than home-movers since the first half of 1995.

Moving costs, a lack of suitable properties and potential interest rate rises may be weighing on home-owners’ minds when deciding whether or not to move, the report suggested.

Over the past five years, the average price paid by homemovers for a property has surged by more than a third (35%) or £77,457 – from £219,479 in 2013 to a record high of £296,936 in 2018 Lloyds said.

In East Anglia, the average price a home-mover pays has ballooned by 46% since 2013 to £305,612 – the highest rate of growth Lloyds found across the UK.

Andrew Mason, Lloyds Bank mortgage products director, said: “Despite continuing low mortgage rates, the home-mover market has stabilised with little movement in the first half of this year to leave first-time buyers now driving housing activity.

“It is good to see the number of first-time buyers increasing, helping to keep some movement along the property ladder.”