Mortgage rules shake-up has an instant effect for first-time buyers

When Amber Leaux graduated from university in 2018, she moved back into her parents' council flat in north London to save for her first home.

- Emma Haslett

Since then Leaux, a PR consultant and the host of the Style & City Diaries podcast, says she has saved a 10% deposit. But an announcement by chancellor Rachel Reeves last week, which will make mortgages available to those on lower incomes, may mean Leaux can buy her first home - and move out of her parents' flat - "by the end of the year", she says.

Data published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in January this year showed that 1.7 million 24to 34-year-olds, or 20% of that age group, are living with their parents - the most in two decades.

The government estimated that Reeves's new rules, which will increase the number of people who can borrow at more than 4.5 times their salary, the current limit, and allow first-time buyers on lower incomes to take out mortgages, will help 36,000 people to get on the housing ladder.