There were more mortgages issued to first-time buyers in 2017 than in any year since 2006 according to UK Finance. However, many are still struggling to take the first rung of the ladder.
The ONS has just released data on affordability among prospective and actual first time buyers. They revealed that first-time home buyers in London in 2017 could expect to spend 13 times their earnings on property, compared with 5.5 times in the North East.
However, using UK Finance data, they suggest that first time buyers who took out a mortgage in 2017 actually spent, on average, 4.3 times their gross annual income on their homes, up from 4.2 in 2016.
First-time buyer purchase affordability ratios in 2017 were lowest in local authorities in Wales and in northern parts of England. There were 12 local authorities in which first-time buyers spent more than six times their income on buying a property with a mortgage, all of which were in London.
