First-time Mortgage Buyers Should Look North, Study Suggests
Britons trying to get on the home loan ladder by taking out products such as a tracker
mortgage may be well advised to focus their search on the north of England.That is if findings from new research conducted by Halifax are anything to go by, as this established there is as much as a nine-year difference in terms of the age people can afford their first mortgage depending on the area they are attempting to buy.
For instance, the study revealed that while the average age of a first-time buyer in Britain is 29, this drops to 25 in the North Yorkshire town of Selby and rises to 34 in the London borough of Harrow.
Nitesh Patel, housing economist at Halifax, observed there are "several areas in the country where the average age of first-time buyers is three or four years below the national average", the majority of which are in the north.
This comes after Helen Adams of First Rung Now stated that high deposit demands are stunting the UK property sector at present.
In related news, tracker mortgage holders may not have their home loan repayments affected by an interest rate rise for another two years or so.
That is the view of David Smith, economics editor at the Sunday Times, who believes the Bank of England could keep the base rate at its historically low level of 0.5 per cent until the middle of 2013.
Last month (September 21st), the Bank revealed in its minutes from this month's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting that all nine members of the panel voted to maintain the figure for the 30th month in a row.
There has been speculation recently that policymakers could up the rate sooner rather than later - a prospect that is sure to concern householders with mortgages linked to the figure.
However, Mr Smith does not believe this to be likely, adding: "We seem to be in for a long period of very low interest rates."
Meanwhile, prospective holders of home loans such as tracker mortgages are facing an increasingly difficult task to get on the property ladder, new research has shown.
According to a study published by First Direct recently (September 17th), the cost of deposits and houses mortgage customers are dealing with at present is significantly higher than income rises being seen across the country.
It was established that in the last 21 years, the average down payment on an abode in the UK has gone up to almost 66,000 from a level of around 6,700 in 1990.
This figure is not in line with the average household income hike of 250 per cent in the same period and Bruno Genovese, senior savings product manager at the financier indicated this is why the average age of first-time buyers is going up.
Nevertheless, Ben Wilkie of What Mortgage noted recently that struggling homeowners should consider interest-only mortgages.
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