First-time buyers see costs rise 9%

First-time buyers have seen the cost of stepping onto the property ladder rise sharply in the past year, according to new research. The average price paid by a first-time buyer in Britain last year was £231,455, up 9% on a year earlier, while the average deposit increased by 7% to a record £46,187, according to Halifax. Despite the increasing costs, overall numbers of first-time buyers in 2019 were up around 1% to 356,767. Burnley, Lancashire is now the most affordable area for local first-time buyers - calculated by comparing average earnings to average house prices - producing a ratio of 3.1. Otherwise the majority of the top 10 most affordable areas are in Scotland and Wales. Halifax also looked back at the previous decade, finding that the volume of first-time buyer transactions has surged by around 84%, and grew from 39% to 51% of all home purchases during the period.

Daily Mail (25/01/20)   The Daily Telegraph (25/01/20)   Yorkshire Post (25/01/20)