delusionofgrandeur

The Halifax has released it’s 2007 annual first-time buyers review which looks at the state of the housing market for FTBs within the United Kingdom.

They have found that the number of First Time Buyers has dropped to it’s lowest level since 1980 at the start of the 80’s house price crash.

New Halifax research estimates that the number of first time buyers (FTBs) is at its lowest since 1980. An estimated 300,000 first time buyers entered the market in 2007 – 44% less than in 2002 (532,000).

First time buyers cannot afford* to purchase a terraced property – traditionally the least expensive property type - in 71% of towns across the UK (322 out of 454). In 2002, the typical FTB could not afford to purchase a terrace in only 11% of towns across the UK (51 towns).

It seems clear that FTBs are not buying simply because they are unable to. The initial symptom was that they became priced out due to the massive house price inflation and the new symptom is that as a result of the credit crunch, they can no-longer obtain the frightening amounts of credit required to purchase a home.

It is now speculated in various circles that the prices of houses will fall as their current heady heights are the result of ‘bubble-market’ which, without the credit to support it, will collapse.

The full Halifax report can be read HERE. Watch out, it’s a Microsoft Doc format file but you can read it by downloading OpenOffice.org Note to HBoS: Portable Document Format (PDF) is your friend.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Economy, Fantasy House Prices.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.