First-time buyers have shot up in numbers leading to the best start to the year in half a decade, UK figures reveal.
The new data, released this week by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, comes as Property Life steps up its GetMoving campaign to encourage and support people to move into and around the county.
This week we focus on new homes, with a six-page New Homes Spring Review in our new homes section. Find out about the schemes on offer and where they apply, as well as the latest reaction on the Government's new Help to Buy scheme.
The number of first-time buyers increased by three per cent in February, marking the best start to a year since 2008, according to the CML.
Activity in the first-time buyer sector was 17 per cent stronger in February than in February 2012, the figures show. Combined with January this year, it reached the largest number of first-time buyers in the first two months of the year since 2008.
CML director general Paul Smee said: "First-time buyers are continuing to take advantage of more favourable market conditions, helping to drive the underlying trend for resilient house purchase lending.
"We hope that the new initiatives announced by the government in the 2013 Budget will further stimulate first-time buyer activity but also help those second steppers looking to move into a new or existing home."
A total of 16,400 loans were advanced to first-time buyers in February, up on 15,900 in January and 14,000 at the same time last year. By value, loans to first-time buyers totalled £2 billion, the same amount as the previous month, but 18 per cent higher than in February 2012, when it was £1.7 billion.
First-time buyers accounted for 43 per cent of all house purchase loans in February this year. This was the sixth consecutive month that this indicator has been at or above 40 per cent, suggesting that market conditions continue to improve for first-time buyers, the CML said.
Signs of loan affordability also suggest that the market was marginally more favourable for first-time buyers in February, according to the CML. First-time buyers typically borrowed a smaller amount in February than in January, both in absolute terms and relative to their income. First-time buyers typically borrowed 3.19 times their income in February, down from 3.2 times in January, while the average loan to value ratio remained at 80 per cent.
The CML added this was likely to be associated with a shift towards the purchase of less expensive properties by first-time buyers, with a small increase in the proportion of properties bought for less than £125,000.
