The chair of NatWest has claimed it is not “that difficult” to get on the property ladder, despite the number of first-time buyers with a mortgage falling to the lowest level in a decade.
“I don’t think it is that difficult at the moment,” Sir Howard Davies told the BBC.
Pressed about this assertion, he added: “You have to save, and that is the way it always used to be.”
His comments to Radio 4’s Today programme follow a report published earlier this week by Yorkshire Building Society, which found that the number of first-time buyers who bought a home with a mortgage fell to the lowest level in a decade in 2023.
Well, to be fair, the house price to income ratio today is the lowest since 2009. So buying today is much easier than any time before since the last 14 years.