Industry has most optimism round first-time buyer market

June 2, 2025 by Brendan O'Neill

Borrowers

It is the market for those looking to buy a first home that mortgage industry professionals have most optimism about in 2025, according to a new survey that has just been published.

This survey comes from Countrywide Surveying Services (CSS) and was carried out during a recent webinar. According to the results, 50% of those who took part in it named the first-time buyer market as the one that they had the most confidence in. This puts it far ahead of all other areas of the mortgage market. In second place was the new build market, with 18% of the vote.

Third place was taken by the equity release sector, which 13% of professionals named as the area they felt most optimistic about for 2025. Then came the buy-to-let field, which was chosen by 3% of professionals.

Other figures that have been published in recent times indicate that professionals are right to concentrate on those buying for the first time. Alexander Hall, a mortgage advice firm, has revealed that those buyers accounted for 28.7% of its total activity last year. The previous year, they made up just 23.3% of it.

Speaking to Mortgage Introducer, Matthew Cumber from CSS said:

“It’s encouraging to see such strong confidence emerging towards first-time buyers and new build, but the message from the industry is clear in that affordability and housing supply must be prioritised if we want to see sustainable growth.”

Not many people who have CeMAP mortgage advisor training would disagree on where the priorities should lie.