First Time Buyers Returning To The Housing Market
We have reported on a few occasions recently on how levels of confidence are starting to return to the housing and homeowner loan markets, mainly due to the currently low level of house prices and reasonably low interest rates on homeowner loans and mortgages.
According to the homeowner loan brokers John Charcoal, there has been a steady and consistent increase in confidence levels from first time buyers in particular, since the early part of this year and their index shows that first time buyer loan enquiries have increased by around 3.5 times between January and April this year, compared with the previous four months.
Although house prices are now far more affordable, particularly for first time buyers, there is still a lack of available funding through suitable homeowner loans at reasonable rates and higher loan to value ratios. Despite this drawback, many first time buyers are managing to scrape together the necessary amount of cash to build a deposit somewhere in the region of 25 per cent of the purchase price.
Ray Boulger of John Charcoal commented on the figures. He said “The return of significantly more first time buyers in to the market this year, despite the lack of high loan to value mortgages, is one of the best indicators of confidence we’ve got at the moment. A surprising number of first time buyers have managed to find deposits of at least 25 per cent in order to access a wider choice of mortgages and get a cheaper deal.
Many branches of the bank of Mum and Dad have proved more robust than many of our high street banks, haven’t needed a government bail out and recognise that providing their son or daughter with a sizeable deposit is often a good way of utilising their savings.”
