Home Residential PropertyFirst-Time BuyersLondoners must wait twice as long to buy first home

Londoners must wait twice as long to buy first home

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17th Oct 12 12:31 pm

Londoners on average have to wait 18 years and 10 months to save enough for a deposit on their first property, the Yorkshire Building Society revealed today.

According to the mortgage lenderโ€™s report on first-time buyers, Londoners must put down an average deposit of over ยฃ61,000 for an average London home which costs almost a quarter of a million pounds.

Nationally, the average waiting period for a home is eight-and-a-half-years, nabbed with an average deposit of ยฃ26,250 for a house costing ยฃ105,000. But there are huge regional variations. It takes less than five years to put down a deposit in Wales, and five years for a first-time home in the North West.

Even choosing to set yourself up in the south-east is significantly cheaper than London. It takes around 10 years and eight months to raise the ยฃ30,000 deposit for the average ยฃ145,000 home.

London house prices for first-time buyers are now at all-time highs, having recovered from their brief recession dip. In 2009 they fell to 2006 levels of some ยฃ195,500.

While prices have risen by less than 20% since 2006 though, deposits have almost tripled. In times of easy credit, first-time buyers in the capital were asked to put down just ยฃ21,500 deposit, the Yorkshire said.

Young people in the capital enjoy higher salaries than elsewhere, but this does not give them much of an advantage in terms of buying a home. The higher living costs, such as higher rents, mean that Londoners are not able to put aside much more than their peers elsewhere.

Despite the tough market conditions, three-quarters of non-home owners still aspired to buy their own home, the report said. Nesting with a partner and investing, topped the list of reasons for wanting to settle down.

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