Choice-based guidance

FRESH CONFIRMATION of the squeeze on first-time buyers comes in new figures from the CML today.

The average first-time buyer borrowed a record 3.29 times their income to buy a home in November and the average advance is now almost £114,000. Meanwhile, interest payments now make up 17.8% of their income, the highest proportion since 1992. The figures are especially worrying when you consider that these are the people who actually succeeded in buying, that many of them still had to rely on help from their families and that interest rates increased in November and again this month.

Last week the RICS reported that the up-front costs of buying a home – the deposit and stamp duty – now account for 82% of the annual take-home pay of the average first-time buyer household. This prompted it to brand government plans to create an inclusive society as ‘a pipe dream’.