First time buyers 'not priced out of London'

23-Jul-2007

Rising house prices and a formidable buy-to-let market do not automatically mean that first time buyers are unable to purchase property in London, it has been suggested.

The National Landlords Association (NLA) has said that the buy-to-let phenomenon has not prevented first time buyers from getting onto the property ladder because the two groups do not usually overlap in terms of the homes they are looking to purchase – particularly in central London.

Late last week Halifax reported that the price of a home in Greater London now stood at over £300,000 for the first time.

The NLA says that buy-to-let landlords are now more likely to buy higher quality homes, but recent research from Alliance & Leicester indicated that just three per cent of Londoners saw their property as a 'dream home'.

"There is no automatic link between being a property that a first time buyer will be able to afford and a buy-to-let property. Particularly if it's in central London it's going to be an expensive flat, which is not necessarily the type of property a first time buyer will be purchasing," commented NLA spokesperson Simon Gordon.

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