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TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Strongest summer on record for first-time buyers

First-time buyers enjoy their strongest summer on record as sales picked up 25% in the aftermath of the general election.

There were 30,200 first-time buyer sales in August, up 27% on May.

Transaction levels held steady on July at a post-recession record and the highest total since August 2007

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This makes the last three months the strongest summer in eight years, with almost 90,000 sales in total, according to the latest First-Time Buyer Tracker from Your Move and Reeds Rains. 

But rising costs may spell trouble for first-time buyers, as the average deposit has risen by 9% since May 2015

Adrian Gill, director of Your Move and Reeds Rains, said: “An end-of-summer surge in first-time buyer activity is in full swing.

“With May’s General Election a distant memory, many first-time buyers are basking in the political stability that comes with a majority Government and a fixed-term Parliament."

Gill said that first-time buyers are also benefitting from a British economy that is beginning to roar.

"As real-term wages rise and job security is increasingly taken as a given, renters are feeling, in ever larger numbers, that they have ability to overcome cost caveats and turn their property-owning dreams into reality.”

Despite their strong summer, first-time buyers face a range of rising costs associated with purchasing property. Between August and May of this year, the average first-time buyer deposit grew by 9% to £26,741.

Deposit costs now consume 68.5% of the average first-time buyer's income, up from 63.7% in May.

The average mortgage rate continues to fall, but an increasingly slow pace. In August, the average rate stood at 3.35%, a negligible 0.08 percentage point decrease on last month’s average rate.

Gill added: “Rising deposit costs and average house prices – while hardly a first-time buyer dream – are encouraging economic signs.

“They point to rising real-terms pay and overall consumer confidence.”

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