What can a first time buyer do to get onto the property ladder?

One answer can be a joint mortgage. Purchasing a property with someone else can be a good alternate option, as your application will be based on two incomes and together, you may have a large deposit to put down.

Another option is shared ownership. This is when you part buy, part rent a home through shared ownership which means you can apply for a smaller mortgage amount and could also put a lower deposit down.

Check if there are any schemes available that you take advantage of. For example, at the time of writing, there is ‘The Mortgage Guarantee Scheme’. A UK wide government scheme to help to increase the supply by 5% deposit mortgages for credit-worthy households by supporting lenders to offer these products through a government backed guarantee on new 95% mortgages until 31st December 2022.

However, depending on where you live and your circumstances, there will be different schemes available to you. The Government introduced a campaign called ‘Own Your Home’, with a range of government schemes available to make buying a home more affordable, you can search to find out which scheme is right for you.

One last thing to think about is where you would like to live. Different regions of the UK have different house prices, as you probably know London is the most expensive place to live with house prices averaging at £523,666. Whilst in the North West of England, average prices are £205,121 and in the West Midlands averaging at £240,528 [2]. With excellent transport links and working from home becoming more available to employees, looking in a different area may be something to think about.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/housepriceindex/october2022#:~:text=a%20record%20high.-,The%20average%20UK%20house%20price%20was%20%C2%A3296%2C000%20in%20October,the%20year%20to%20September%202022.

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-for-march-2022