Number of UK first-time buyers rose by 20% in 2024

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The variety of UK first-time consumers jumped by virtually 20 per cent final yr and accounted for a file share of recent dwelling mortgages, in keeping with analysis that factors to the affect of easing borrowing prices on demand.

Some 341,068 first-time purchases had been made in 2024, up 19 per cent from 2023, the lender Halifax mentioned on Friday, after two years of contraction. The figures are primarily based on UK Finance information on transactions with a mortgage.

First-time consumers accounted for 54 per cent of all property purchases involving a mortgage, the best proportion since comparable information assortment started in 2014, Halifax mentioned.

It added that many first-time consumers had made their buy “coupled up”, with virtually two-thirds of mortgage completions amongst this cohort final yr made in two or extra names.

Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax, mentioned the leap in first-time purchases in all probability mirrored “an enchancment in mortgage affordability, as rates of interest eased and stabilised, offering extra certainty for these stepping on to the ladder”.

Mortgage charges have fallen from their peak in the summertime of 2023 following a drop in Financial institution of England rates of interest, resulting in a discount in month-to-month funds.

Barclays and Santander introduced mortgage merchandise on Thursday with rates below 4 per cent for the primary time since November, and the BoE is anticipated to chop its benchmark price additional this yr.

Toby Leek, president of NAEA Propertymark, which speaks for property brokers, mentioned the rise within the variety of first-time consumers was “optimistic” however added that the determine had in all probability been boosted by the tip of the stamp responsibility vacation in March.

“To be able to get individuals throughout the nation on to the housing ladder in the long run, we have to begin to see extra properties of all sorts and tenures being constructed to convey down home costs,” he mentioned.

Regardless of the autumn in mortgage charges, Halifax reported severe affordability challenges, with the standard new purchaser having to place down a deposit of £61,090 in 2024, about £7,500 greater than the earlier yr.

In London, the place the common home prices £512,000 and housing demand is especially acute, the standard first-time purchaser deposit hit £125,000.

The typical price of a UK first-time purchaser’s dwelling was £311,034 in 2024, up 8 per cent from the earlier yr, and the common first-time purchaser was 33 final yr, the best age previously twenty years, Halifax mentioned.

Within the monetary yr to March 2024, 31 per cent of first-time consumers mentioned household and pals had provided “some help” with a deposit, up from 22 per cent within the mid-Nineties, in keeping with separate information from constructing society Nationwide.

One other 9 per cent of first-time consumers’ deposits had been secured by way of inheritance.