I read a comment yesterday from a potential first time buyer that was the first time I had seen someone write what I believe to be true about the reality of being a first time buyer in the UK today.
He or she ( who knows with these cryptic pen names ) wrote that without 100% mortgages a first time buyer looking at a property in the region of £165,000 is being asked for a 25% deposit or more to secure a reasonable mortgage rate.
To him or her that equates to £ 41,250 which is alarmingly more than double the annual wage in this country. They went on to write that this in no way reflects what any previous generation has faced and went on to point out that several years ago a 5% deposit on a £20,000 house was
£ 1000 and the average annual wage at the same time was around £14,000.
There were a significant amount of comments about young people should be "going without" for a while once they got their first home, but in my opinion this simply misses the point. Whereas £1000 deposit years ago was a reachable sum through saving, I do not know many young people with £ 41,250 in savings.
The UK used to be a nation of home owners, that is clearly changing rapidly.
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