Advice for first-time home buyers: Will mortgage rates come down?

Will mortgages come down and what advice is out there for first-time home buyers?

Transcript

00:00 Almost half the people that we spoke to have said to us that their prospects of owning

00:07 a home are further away than they ever have been. And over 80% of people said, look, the

00:13 cost of living crisis is really impacting our plans, with half of people saying, look,

00:18 I've had to postpone my plans or I can't see me achieving, you know, having my own

00:24 home until I'm well into my 40s.

00:26 The number of first-time buyers who bought a home with a mortgage fell to its lowest

00:30 level in a decade in 2023, according to Yorkshire Building Society. And earlier this year, The

00:36 Guardian reported that a 20% deposit on a typical first-time buyer home equated to about

00:42 105% of their average annual gross income. So what are the best steps for first-time

00:48 buyers to take and how might the economic market change going forward?

00:53 If you think about the average price of a first-time buyer house today, and I'm quoting

00:59 Nationwide's house price index here, it's 224,000, just a bit under that. It's understandable

01:07 that people are saying, look, we just can't see how we're going to meet our ambitions.

01:12 So, look, it's fair to say that it's likely that the Bank of England have raised interest

01:19 rates high enough in order to manage inflation. And that's where we saw some of the, you know,

01:24 the increase in mortgage rates that we have. But I, you know, the challenge now is when

01:30 will we see a mortgage rates come down and actually what will be the position when they

01:35 flatten and I haven't got a crystal ball on that, unfortunately.

01:40 What I would say to people is don't delay your plans. Go and take some advice because

01:45 if you just try and predict the market or follow the market, then you're going to hold

01:50 back and it might not be the right decision for you. The right decision may be still taking

01:55 that step to get on the property ladder at this stage.

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