{"id":17676,"date":"2018-06-13T16:45:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyassociation.co.uk\/?p=17676"},"modified":"2018-06-13T16:45:19","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:45:19","slug":"first-time-buyers-flood-the-market-while-more-homeowners-stay-put","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/news\/first-time-buyers-flood-the-market-while-more-homeowners-stay-put\/","title":{"rendered":"First-time buyers flood the market while more homeowners stay put"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aspiring homeowners are making the most of the recent first-time buyer focus from the government, but the second-stepper market has slowed as people hang onto their homes for longer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Successful first-time buyer<\/a> mortgage applications – those that have resulted in completion – soared in the first quarter of this year, with a 76% success rate compared to just 48% two years ago, according to the latest figures from the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 90% of first-time buyer applicants secured a mortgage offer<\/a>, which was up from 70% in the first quarter of 2016, with applications from first-timers rising as more individuals try to get onto the housing ladder to take advantage of the stamp duty relief<\/a> and Help To Buy<\/a> schemes available to them.<\/p>\n

Getting onto the ladder could be easier than moving<\/h4>\n

However, for those who already own a home<\/a>, the mortgage lending market has slowed down considerably according to the IMLA, with a 42% fall in the number of people moving house<\/a>\u00a0with mortgages since 2007. Interestingly, while the average homeowner moved house once every 7.4 years back in 1988, people now stay put<\/a> for an average of 19.2 years.<\/p>\n

This change could be down to a number of factors, one of which is likely to be linked to rising house prices<\/a>, which make moving more difficult but can also benefit homeowners who can the equity<\/a> they have gained through the capital appreciation of their home towards retirement.<\/p>\n

Since the last quarter of 2017, the number of successful mortgage applications which have led to completion from homemovers has fallen by an average of 3% from 77% down to 74%.<\/p>\n

Serving the whole market<\/h4>\n

Kate Davies, executive director of\u00a0IMLA<\/span>, said: “First-time buyers\u2019 struggles<\/a> have been highly publicised, with affordability stretched by house price inflation and modest income growth<\/a>. Yet rising levels of mortgage enquiries, applications and completions shows that first-time buyers remain interested, able and willing to get a foot on the property ladder, with this customer group performing better than any other in the mortgage market, both in the short-term and on an annual basis.”<\/p>\n

She added that while the government’s focus on increasing homeownership<\/a> has resulted in a greater number of new homes<\/a> being built, as well as more affordable housing<\/a>, the initiatives haven’t done enough for movers, or “steppers” who continue to struggle with high house prices compared to wages, stricter lending criteria and a lack of available, appropriate homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The government should take this pivotal juncture as an opportunity to reassess where in the market injections of new homes are needed: working with developers, planners and lenders to ensure the whole market is well-served,” Davies concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspiring homeowners are making the most of the recent first-time buyer focus from the government, but the second-stepper market has slowed as people hang onto their homes for longer. Successful first-time buyer mortgage applications – those that have resulted in completion – soared in the first quarter of this year, with a 76% success rate… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":15457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[84,341],"class_list":["post-17676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-housing-market","tag-first-time-buyer","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}