The Average First-Time Buyer Deposit Is Now 14%

More than half of every mortgage sold in Britain last year went to a first-time buyer, which sounds like things are getting easier.

What’s actually happening is buyers borrowing more of the price, not less.

The typical first-time buyer put down a little over 14% and borrowed the rest. Most of them start out owning roughly the bathroom, and the lender owns the house it’s in.

Congratulations, I suppose.

Is this actually a record?

Sort of.

First-time buyers made up 52.8% of UK mortgage sales in 2025, against 33.8% in 2006.

(ie since the ONS series began)

The wider picture is real enough. 717,519 mortgages were sold last year, up roughly 16% on 2024.

What is the average first-time buyer deposit?

Median loan to value reached 85.6%, the highest since before the 2008 financial crisis.

Turn that round and the deposit is about 14.4%. On a £250,000 purchase, somewhere near £36,000.

Eek.

This isn’t a scandal in itself. Borrowing most of the price is what a mortgage is. But the split does have repercussions.

Why does the exact percentage matter?

Because lenders price in bands, and the bands sit on round numbers.

Scrape under one and the pricing improves. Miss it by a few hundred pounds and it doesn’t, and those few hundred pounds are the difference between owning the bathroom and owning the bathroom and the hallway. It’s one of the very few levers in this process you can still pull while you’re saving.

Why do London buyers put down the biggest deposits?

Because in London it’s the deposit that stops you, not the lender’s nerve.

London had the lowest first-time buyer loan to value in the country at 80.2%. Scotland, Wales, and the North East sat among the highest.

Anyone who has tried to buy in London will enjoy that.

Selection, Not Prudence

At London prices the income multiple runs out long before the deposit does, so the people reaching completion skew hard towards those who could put down more cash. Anyone who’d have needed to borrow nearly all of it never shows up, because a dataset of completed sales only contains completions.

That’s where I’d start. I’d also hold it loosely; the ONS gave me the figure, not the reason.

So what does this actually change?

Less than the headline implies. More than nothing.

A majority-first-time-buyer market doesn’t make any lender friendlier to you in particular. What you can borrow is still your income, your commitments, your credit file and the property itself, and no two applications land the same way.

What it does tell you is that the people bidding against you are standing in a smaller room than the people who bid against your parents.

Most useful while you’re still saving. Less useful once you’ve offered.