The number of first-time buyers in the UK, who bought a home with a mortgage, fell to its lowest level in a decade in 2023, according to a leading lender.
Yorkshire Building Society said there were an estimated 290,000 first-time buyers in 2023, down a fifth compared with 2022, when the number reached 370,000, and the lowest since 2013, when the total was 260,000.
The fall in the number of first-time buyers last year was less severe than the decrease in the overall number of buyers, said the lender.
Yorkshire said that while activity across all borrower types had fallen because of higher interest rates, cost of living pressures and high house prices, first-time buyers remained determined to overcome these challenges to invest in their own bricks and mortar.
But, it added that borrowers were finding it harder to meet lenders’ affordability requirements.
Ben Merritt, the Yorkshire’s director of mortgages, said: “First-time buyers are the lifeblood of the market and are still clearly keen to buy… The wider market relies on them, not least to support purchases higher up the chain.”