Yorkshire Building Society has released data taken from UK Finance data up until June 2019 to reveal that the number of first time buyers in the UK has risen to its highest level since 2007, prior to the credit crunch.
The good news is that political uncertainty created around Brexit has not put off first time buyers from wanting to climb onto the property ladder. The number of new buyers is now just six per cent below the pre-crisis level.
In the last decade, the number of first time buyers grown by over 136 per cent.
During the course of the first six months of 2019, the total figure of first-time buyers hit 170,080 – a three per cent rise year on year compared to 2018.
Biggest market share
First time buyers account for a significant 52 per cent of all UK homes purchased with a mortgage. The last time first time buyers accounted for over half the market share of homes bought with financing was back in 1995, when they reached a total of 53 per cent.
The percentage of first time buyers has been increasing steadily for the last 18 years; running at 150,000 or more since 2016.
London has largest proportion of first time buyers
Despite high property prices, London has seen the biggest price increase of 55 per cent equating to £155,027, but across the UK areas have also experienced an upturn. The North East continues to offer best value, where the average first-time buyer price is currently £136,974, less than a third of the value in London.
The average price of a typical first-time buyer home is £236,089 in the first half of this year, representing an increase of 41 per cent or £68,997.
Nitesh Patel, Yorkshire Building Society’s strategic economist said: “These figures show an increasing confidence to get on to the house ladder with first-time buyer numbers close to their pre-crash levels. This is partly to do with a strong jobs market, with record numbers in full-time employment and resurgence in real earnings growth.”
