"The high cost of homeownership remains a significant barrier, and, since the start of the year, first-time buyer demand levels have fallen across all but a handful of major cities"
- Verona Frankish - Yopa
First-time buyer interest has fallen noticeably across Britain’s major cities, with Nottingham experiencing the steepest decline since the start of the year.
Research from Yopa, analysing homes listed under buying schemes, shows that just 1.8% of current for-sale stock qualifies under such schemes. Despite this limited availability, demand has cooled, with 32.3% of first-time buyer homes finding a buyer in Q3 2025, down from 34% in Q1, a decline of 1.7 percentage points.
Bristol, Liverpool, and Leeds remain the hottest markets for first-time buyers, with between 43% and 52% of FTB homes sold in Q3, although all three cities have seen demand fall since the start of the year.
Nottingham has suffered the sharpest drop, with demand plummeting from 65.5% to 26.7%, a fall of 38.8 percentage points. Other notable quarterly declines include Cardiff (-28.5%), Edinburgh (-28.0%), Newcastle (-23.7%), Liverpool (-19.2%), Leeds (-16.4%) and Sheffield (-13.6%).
Some cities have bucked the trend. Leicester has seen the strongest growth in first-time buyer activity, rising from 39.7% to 45.3%, while Bournemouth (+2.1%) and Birmingham (+1.6%) also posted modest quarterly gains.
Verona Frankish, CEO of Yopa, commented, “Stronger wage growth and improvements to both the range and affordability of mortgage products in recent months have both helped to boost the ability of first-time buyers when it comes to climbing the property ladder."
"However, the high cost of homeownership remains a significant barrier, and, since the start of the year, first-time buyer demand levels have fallen across all but a handful of major cities. Should the Government introduce a stamp duty shake-up in the upcoming Autumn Budget, it would help to significantly boost first-time buyer activity."
"Unfortunately, this is likely to be wishful thinking, but at the very least, we need to see more homes become available with the added boost of a buying scheme in order to help stimulate the market.”
