COVID 19 Means First Time Buyers Need Extra £10k Deposit

Published / Last Updated on 25/01/2021

According to recent research complied by the Halifax, first time buyers needed an extra £10,000 deposit to secure their first home in 2020.

First time buyers put down an average of £57,278 compared to 2019's figure of £46,449 that’s a rise of 23%.

The average purchase price paid by first time buyers in 2020 was £256,057 compared to 2019 which was £233,118.

The largest increase was London where the average price paid increased by £33,486 from £455,611 to £489,098.

2020 saw a drop-in first-time buyer numbers by 13%.  This was largely whilst the market was closed in the first half of 2020.  However, activity did bounce back with house purchase transactions down 2% compared to the same 6 months of 2019.

Around half of the homes were purchased by first time buyers which was a similar level to the year before.

The largest fall regionally was Northern Ireland with a 23% decrease in first time buyers, however London saw the smallest reduction of 6%.

Halifax managing director, Russell Galley comments: “The figures shown confirm the fall in the overall numbers of first-time buyers in 2020.  It also shows how strong the market bounced back in the second half of the year.

The impact of the pandemic is likely to be felt by the young in lower-paid jobs and there is still need to improve housing availability and affordability for those looking to make their first purchase”.

Comment

All markets, including the property market suffered in 2020.  The housing market was no doubt saved by the stamp duty holiday.  That said, we believ the rise in property prices is an artificial one and we expect prices to fall as the real economic hit from the pandemic takes shape in the latter half of 2020 and throgh into 2021.  Many businesses are going to struggle when support ends and some will bounce back to be even leaner, bigger and more efficient others will go under meaning job losses and repossions to grow.

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