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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
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.
On Friday, the lender Halifax recorded the third monthly rise in house prices in a row in December, with the typical home costing £287,105.
“Telling first-time buyers it’s not that difficult to get on the ladder is quite simply a slap in the face to people struggling to make ends meet, never mind save for a deposit on a mortgage.”
“Interest rates have increased but house prices have yet to correct, meaning we still need to save for a huge deposit, but also would need a high income to afford monthly mortgage repayments.”
Last year, he weathered calls for his resignation after initially backing Alison Rose in the row over a media leak pertaining to the closure of the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s accounts with the NatWest subsidiary Coutts.
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