A property market consultant has warned that first-time buyers are still unable to get on the property ladder - and the market will not recover until they can join it.
First-time buyers are still struggling to afford properties and get mortgages, stifling a potential recovery in the property market, it has been claimed.
According to figures from consultancy firm Hometrack, house prices declined by just 0.3 percent this month, the slowest monthly fall in a year - although prices were 10.1 percent lower than April 2008. Additionally, the number of sales increased by 15 percent this month, marking a 70 percent increase over the past three months.
However, Hometrack warned that most of this increase in growth - which has come after extremely low activity - is the result of a certain group, namely people buying family housing or cash investors taking advantage of low interest rates. First-time buyers are still frozen out because of a lack of mortgage availability and funds to make a purchase.
"The market cannot operate indefinitely with just one sub-set of active buyers," warned Hometrack head of research Richard Donnell. "In the rush to seek out the green shoots of recovery, the importance of first-time buyers in driving the market is often underestimated."
Hometrack expects monthly price falls to continue throughout the year, while 2009 will see just 600,000 open market sales, compared to the "normal" figure of one million to 1.3 million.
