Help for First Time Buyers

Looking to Buy a Cosy Home or a Halfway House? April 2008

One thing that the UK property boom has demanded is a plethora of television programmes all about the topic. While they often provide some excellent advice, show's like C4's Location, Location, Location often follow a young couple's exhaustive hunt for their dream home, or else we see someone struggling to build their personal fantasy all glass, self-sufficient, eco-home whilst our genial host casually mocks their taste in carpets. It seems we're all increasingly fixated on the idea of a dream home that fulfils our every desire from location to size to that much discussed but still elusive wow factor.   

It's a fantasy that is increasingly undermined by the realistic practicalities of affordable first time buying. More and more people now seem content to play the long game and recognise that their priority must first be with establishing themselves on that all important first rung of property ladder. A dream home will generally mean the sort of hefty mortgages that simply aren't feasible for young house buyers.   This means house buying has increasingly become about investment rather than nest building, so that, particularly for first time buyers, there is a degree of emotional detachment. This is borne out by the fact that first time buyers only expect to be in their property for an average of three years and four months.   

A recent study asked UK homeowners to rate their sense of emotional attachment to their house on a scale of one to ten - the average score turned out to be 5.83. If anything this suggests a degree of apathy that in turn indicates the prevalence of what are being dubbed ‘halfway houses' - homes that might serve more as a stopgap. It seems that savvy house buyers are content to save money on expensive personalisation and kit out there place as cheaply as they can with a view to working the market to their advantage and making a substantial profit some way down the line.   

This increase in emotionally removed, economically minded home buying can also be detected in a survey conducted by Alliance and Leicester Mortgages that examines the factors people consider when buying a home; tellingly price and job/career considerations come out some way ahead of the proximity of family and friends. Top of the list by some distance is location, with 58% of those polled claiming it's a top consideration, and again this serves to reinforce the notion that the house itself is no longer likely to be the biggest priority.

All in all having watched the UK housing market go through a substantial boom, we now seem to be seeing the prevalence of dispassionate, market-orientated home buying. Not surprising really, it makes sense to work your way towards that ultimate ideal home gradually and through shrewd investment rather than biting the bullet and committing to unrealistic, financially debilitating mortgages.

In the meantime, if you're looking to get into the market, then it comes as recommended to look at Alliance and Leicester for some of the UK's top mortgage rates, while a portal such as Fish4 could make your property search all the easier.