What the papers said about house prices and small deposits

As we enter both a new year and a new decade, the weekend’s financial press took a look at changing times within the mortgage market. The Telegraph reported a 32% increase in average house prices since 2007, but also highlighted that salaries in the UK haven’t risen anywhere near that much, and in fact have grown more slowly than in any other G7 nation, including France and Germany. The average home in Britain now costs around 6.4 times income. The biggest challenge for those looking to buy continues to be the ability to build up a big enough deposit. Figures in the Times, however, revealed that there were bigger cuts in interest rates for buyers with small deposits than for any other group of borrowers over the past 12 months. This is good news for First Time Buyers, but experts in the Sunday Times warned that regulators will be keeping a close eye on the volumes that lenders are starting to pick up. Last year the share of mortgages at or above 90% Loan to Value hit its highest since 2008 as lenders battled for new customers.