Loans for first-time buyers up by a fifth

THE number of people who got on the property ladder with a mortgage across the UK last year is estimated by a building society to be up by nearly a fifth compared with 2024.

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Yorkshire Building Society estimated that 390,324 first-time buyer mortgage transactions took place in 2025-marking an 18% increase compared with 2024 and close to a recent peak in 2022 (405,250), which was partly driven by trends seen during the coronavirus pandemic.

To make its calculations for the year 2025, the building society used UK Finance mortgage completions data covering the period up to October 31 and also estimated figures for November and December, in line with previous first-time buyer patterns.