The right time to buy. It's the holy grail of the housebuyer – and for never more so than for the first time buyer.
It's been made brutally clear in recent years - buy when house prices are high and risk negative equity that can trap homeowners in a property for years. Buy at the bottom of the market and luck into owning an asset that will increase steadily in value for years to come.
Of course, one problem is that the right time to buy can so often be unclear until months after it's passed.
But no longer, according to Abbey Mortgages. It says the right time to buy is right now. Its evidence comes in the form of its own research, which suggests that first-time buyers would be better off buying a property than continuing to rent – unless they want to buy in London. The 1.61 million Britons it says are looking to buy now outside the capital, could save a collective £1 billion - or an average £624 each - on their housing costs over the next 12 months if they paid a mortgage instead of rent. That's because they typically pay £434 a month in rent. But by buying a typical first-time buyer property - a flat or a terraced home - with a 25% deposit, Abbey says the typical monthly mortgage bill would be £382, an average saving of £52 a month.
Buying makes the most sense in Wales, says Abbey, where the average £80,023 cost of a terraced home would translate into a monthly mortgage payment - after that crucial 25% deposit - of £329.86. That compares to the average rent of similar homes in Wales of £420.77, a saving of £90.91 a month. Savings are to be made across the UK, says Abbey, except in London where renting a flat is £466.19 cheaper a month than buying.
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Nici Audhlam-Gardiner, director of Abbey Mortgages, says:
"Our latest research shows there is hope for first time buyers trying to buy their first home. It's now cheaper in all bar one of the regions to buy rather than rent and shows that saving for that all important deposit is so worthwhile too."
The deposit is of course the crucial point here. A 25% deposit on that home in Wales would be £20,005.75. It'd be a very disciplined first-time buyer who could save that kind of money, and anecdotal evidence does suggest that most first-time buyers with it are relying heavily on the Bank of Mum and Dad.
But even suppose you could afford to raise the money to buy, would now be a good time to do so? My own feeling is that if property buyers have learned anything from the property market of the last two years, it's that buying a home is about buying somewhere they want to live for a number of years and that's affordable. It’s not about making an investment in the hope that a property will rise in value.
Over to you. Is now the right time for first-time buyers to move? Are you a first-time buyer - or would you like to see more first-time buyer in the market?
Tell us what you think.
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