New research suggests that home buyers with deposits of 15 per cent or less now make up almost a quarter of the UK property market.
According to chartered surveyor e.surv’s latest Mortgage Monitor Report, 66,911 loans were approved in February 2017 – 20.5 per cent of which were handed out to homebuyers with deposits of 15 per cent or less.
In comparison, such borrowers made up only 15.7 per cent of the mortgage market in February the previous year, suggesting a year-on-year rise of 4.8 per cent.
The report also found that the number of loans granted to home buyers with large deposits (of 60 per cent or more) fell slightly last month.
However, buyers with larger deposits still made up a greater share of the market, at 34.7 per cent.
Commenting on the data, Richard Sexton, director of e.surv, said: “Buyers with smaller deposits are growing in number as more people get themselves onto the property ladder.
“This may be because mortgage lenders are now more receptive to first time buyers, but also could be [because of] the number of Government housing schemes helping people save for their deposit to buy a home”.
However, he added: “these figures show that while the number of small deposit buyers obtaining mortgage finance has increased, this segment of the market remains in the shadow of those borrowers with larger sums”.