First time buyer searches have fallen to their lowest proportion of all mortgage searches in five years, research from Twenty7tec has revealed.
The data showed that, despite first-time buyer searches being higher last month compared to the previous month and the same time last year, they are still the lowest proportion of all searches year to date in the past five years.
In 2024 there were 11,559,960 total mortgage searches, only 1,934,626 of which were first-time buyer searches.
This means that first-time buyer searches represented 16.74 per cent of all conducted searches.
Twenty7tec director, Nathan Reilly, said: “While first time buyer searches are up when we look at the monthly data, the worrying thing we’re seeing is that year to date, they are the lowest out of all mortgage searches.
“We need a buoyant first-time buyer market for the whole market to function, and so the government needs to reinvigorate this part of the market to keep everything running smoothly for all homeowners and prospective homeowners house buyers.
“During the general election, Labour promised to keep mortgage rates as low as possible and delivered its idea of a Freedom to Buy mortgage scheme, which plans to encourage lenders to offer high loan-to-value mortgage deals by removing some of the risks from them.
“But we’re now in an interesting period because there have never been as many mortgage products available to buyers on the market, and yet first time buyers as a percentage of the market are still lagging behind where they should be.
“This could indicate that Labour needs to get more creative with its thinking, and potentially look at the innovation from Skipton and Accord in this space, to really convince first time buyers that they are able to get on the housing ladder.”
The data also looked at how the recent figures compared to previous years, revealing that, in 2023, there were 16,683,002 total searches, 2,955,325 of which were first time buyer searches, representing 17.71 per cent of all searches.
Meanwhile, first-time buyer searches represented 18.45 per cent of all searches in 2022, 19.79 per cent of all searches in 2021, and 17.83 per cent in 2020.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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