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First-time buyers set to lose out again in 2012

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 9:19 AM

Less than a quarter of people planning to buy a home over the next 12 months will be a first-time buyer, according to Rightmove.

The website's First-Time Buyer Forecast says first-timers will make up just 23 per cent of buyers in 2012, down from 26 per cent in 2011 and 40 per cent before the credit crunch.

The average age of people who succeed in becoming a first-time buyer will be 32 in 2012. However, people who are trapped renting because they cannot afford to buy have an average age of 35.

More than half (56 per cent) of those planning to buy for the first time expect to put down a deposit of more than £20,000 with an average of £22,000.

Raising the deposit remains the main concern for first-timers but there has also been an increase in those citing worries about their personal financial security from 10 per cent three months ago to 14 per cent now.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: "The first-time buyer remains an endangered species. They perform an essential role at the foot of the property market food chain in allowing sellers on the bottom rung of the housing ladder to trade up, and this makes them highly-prized.

"With prospective first-time buyers even thinner on the ground than at this stage last year, sellers and their estate agents operating at the lower end of the market will need to fully understand the DNA of this group if they are to capture a sale."

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