Santander's Head of Homes, David Morris, comments on today's ONS data on first time buyer mortgage sales, by local authority.
11 June 2025
“First-time buyers continue to adapt to ongoing affordability challenges to secure that initial foothold on the property ladder, reflected in the 16% increase in first-time buyer mortgage sales in 2024 from the previous year. Increasingly, we see first-time buyers willing to compromise on where they buy, with more than two-thirds (67%) setting down roots in an area they had never been to before. The development of the Government’s New Towns initiatives has the potential to bring even more variation to the growing list of popular areas with first-time buyers, as new communities are established outside of traditional city limits.”
Santander research has found first-time buyers are increasingly compromising on location in order to get on the property ladder:
- Two-thirds (67%) of recent first-time buyers bought in a neighbourhood they had never been to before, compared to just over half (51%) of those who bought more than five years ago.
- Over a third (36%) of first-time buyers gave their top reason for moving to an unfamiliar neighbourhood as it being cheaper, while a quarter (24%) said they could not find a property in the neighbourhood they had planned to live in that met their criteria
- Despite being away from loved ones, buying further afield reaps financial reward, with those first-time buyers moving to new neighbourhoods saving an average of £29,000 compared to buying a house in the area they lived in before.
Survey of 2,000 First-Time Buyers, conducted by Opinium for Santander UK in May 2024.
