First-time buyers are an ever growing proportion of the new build market and the sort of homes being built for them must adapt to remain in demand. With Help to Buy boosting the buying power of first time buyers coupled with changing priorities of this group, developers must look to future-proof the homes they are delivering.

First-time buyers were responsible for over 50 per cent of all new residential mortgages issued across the UK in the first quarter of 2018. With affordability a key issue for this buyer group, ensuring new homes hit the right price point and deliver the right product is key in maximising demand.

The first-time buyer’s share of the market has increased by 6 per cent from Q1 2017 to Q1 2018, with 365,000 first-time buyers completing on a mortgage in 2017, the highest number since 2006. First-time buyers of Savills new homes have increased their share of the market by 4 per cent over the last two years. This translates as 81,000 mortgages at a total value of £13.2 billion.

The increasing time it takes for buyers to save for a deposit means many first-time buyers already have children by the time they buy their first home, and of course, this impacts the kind of home they are looking for. Our recent collaborative survey with the NHBC (see Beyond location, location, location: priorities of new-home buyers) found that almost a third of first-time buyers who had purchased a new home after four years of saving already had children and were buying a home with more than three bedrooms.

Help to Buy can provide a solution to future-proofing by allowing buyers to purchase larger homes with a 5 per cent deposit. When the scheme launched in 2013, 22 per cent of purchases were for detached homes, but by 2017 this had increased to 31 per cent of all sales supported by Help to Buy.

Looking forward, it is vital that new homes sales strategies recognise the importance of first-time buyers as a group and deliver homes of the right size and at the right price point to maximise their demand. The smaller homes aimed at younger buyers may not capture all of the market potential and Help to Buy should be considered for larger family homes where appropriate.

Given the importance of Help to Buy for this market, pressure is growing for the Government to confirm its plans for the scheme after its current projected end date in 2021 in order to provide certainty for both developers and prospective home owners in the future.

Here is a selection of properties on the market that would suit first-time buyers.