The latest research by national fast sale estate agent, Springbok Properties, takes a look at how much you would have to save every year of your life for those 30 years in order to accumulate a 10% deposit on the average FTB house price, and how this has changed since 2012.
The data shows that in 2012, the average FTB house price in the UK was £120,304, requiring £12,030 for a 10% deposit. This means that you would have had to save £401 every year since being born in 1982 to save enough for a deposit at that price in 2012.
Skip to today, and the average first-time buyer is now paying £154,238, requiring a deposit of £15,424, meaning those born in 1988 would have had to save £514 for every year of their life just to make it onto today’s ladder.
This is an increase in the yearly saving sum required of 28%, an average annual increase of 4% a year. Over the next 30 years that equates to an increase of 124% and would mean that a baby born today would have to tuck away £1,734 a year just to secure a 10% mortgage deposit of £52,493 in 2049.
This is, of course, a lot higher in some areas, with the yearly saving required for a baby born today to get onto the London ladder in 30 years coming in at an eye-watering £16,508!
In Cambridge and Bristol, this sum exceeds £9,000 at £9,975 and £9,772 respectively.
Aberdeen is the best place for a future home buyer to be born today, with a fall in house prices meaning it would actually be cheaper at £407 per year saved.
Shepherd Ncube, Founder and CEO of Springbok Properties, commented: “We thought the task of getting on the ladder was hard in this day and age, but with house prices continuing to climb ever higher, it could be a much tougher ask for our children in the future.
£500 a year to get on to today’s ladder might not sound a lot today, but when you consider this is not only over a 30-year period but is still just a 10% deposit and not a full properties value, it really does drive home the monumental issues of affordability across the UK market.
I certainly hope for my kids’ sake, that these predictions don’t ring true and we don’t see the cost of buying spiral to these levels, however, if you would have told someone in 1988 they had to save £500 a year to get on the ladder in 30 years’ time, they probably would have laughed at you. So who knows what the future might hold?”
