Shocking statistics from The Money Charity (February 2019) have revealed that it would take the average first time buyer on an average income, 24 years to save for a deposit based on the average UK savings rate.
In their press release, the charity explained that the average first-time buyer deposit has increased to 18% of the average purchase price – equating to an average deposit of £31,551 combined with an average loan of £145,702.
Other data from the charity shows that in the year to December 2018:
- on average, a UK household spent £3.97 a day on water, electricity and gas;
- every day 313 landlord possession claims and 255 landlord possession orders were made;
- in December 2018, borrowers paid £140 million a day in interest;
- the number of mortgages with arrears of over 2.5% of the remaining balance fell by 10 a day;
- unemployment fell with the number of people unemployed falling by 274 per day. The 4%unemployment rate is the lowest on record since February 1975.
Further statistics show that:
- someone making only the minimum credit card payment per month would take 26 years and 5 months to pay off the average credit card;
- there has been a -5.9%change in the average real wage since the pre-crash peak in February 2008;
- in Q3 2018, lenders wrote off £1.094 billion (of which £471 million was credit card debt, amounting to a daily write-off of £5.1 million).