Nationwide has called on the Government to provide more support for first-time buyers in the upcoming Budget, as the path to homeownership continues to be a major challenge.
Ahead of the Spring Budget, the building society identified critical measures the Government and policymakers should introduce to enable more people to buy a home of their own.
This came as high house prices continued to prevent many from accessing a mortgage, with the two main hurdles being the raising of a deposit and affordability.
According to Nationwide’s House Price Index, someone raising a 20% deposit on a typical first-time buyer home would require approximately 105% of the average annual gross income, around £42,2663.
While affordability impacts everyone, there remains considerable variation in affordability across the country, with pressures particularly acute in London, the south of England and East Anglia, while Scotland and the North continue to be the most affordable regions.
In light of this, Nationwide asked the Government to commission an independent review of the first-time buyer market in order to address the gap between income growth and house-price growth, inadequate supply, the need for planning reforms and the impact of regulations on mortgage lending.
In addition, the building society called for Stamp Duty reform to remove any deterrent people currently experience when deciding to buy a home or move.
Henry Jordan, director of home at Nationwide, said: ‘‘The Government must make homeownership accessible for more people.
“By starting with a cross-party review of the first-time buyer market and working cohesively with the industry to implement the best solutions, we can respond to today’s first-time buyer challenges.
“Nationwide is playing its part through our Helping Hand mortgage and could do more if the cap on high loan to income lending was raised.
“To help the process, Nationwide has joined forces with the Building Societies Association (BSA) and four of the UK’s largest building societies to produce a Housing white paper this spring outlining the solutions we believe are needed to tackle the homeownership crisis.”
