20% rise in transactions by 2020 - if only things hadn't changed...

Conveyancing firm My Home Move has come up with an interesting view of how the housing market could look if - unlikely as it may be - first time buyers returned to the days when they had greater access to high loan-to-value lending.

In the event of a number of changes to the market - including first time deposits dropping from the current 17 per cent average to 10 per cent and small rises in interest rates and broader economic indicators - the number of housing transactions could rise by over 20 per cent by 2020. 

The firm claims that the current 1.23m transactions a year, recorded in 2015, could become 1.49m in 2020. 

The forecast shows what the transaction market would be like had traditional relationships between mortgage interest rates, unemployment and average first-time buyer percentage deposits not been disrupted by recent events such as the UK’s Mortgage Market Review, coming after the global economic downturn.

The crystal ball gazing - part of the firm’s 15th anniversary events - was in a report written by the company with input from, amongst others, Purplebricks’ Michael Bruce, Connells’ David Livesey and Rightmove’s Miles Shipside.

“We need more lending to those with smaller deposits so that average deposit sizes for first-time buyers fall to 10 per cent. However, reaching this would require a coordinated effort from across the industry: from builders to ensure the supply is there; from lenders to provide high loan-to-value lending first time buyers depend on; and from those who support first-time buyers to ensure that buying a home is as easy as it can be” says My Home Move’s Doug Crawford.