First-time buyer enquiries rise once more - report

Whether you're a first-time buyer looking to own a house for yourself or a rental project, you may be one of the many people who have sought advice in recent months. This number seems to keep growing too, as the latest figures from unbiased.co.uk's Advice Drivers report have demonstrated that first-time buyer mortgage enquiries experienced a huge jump in January and accounted for 41 per cent of all searches - five per cent up on the 36 per cent in December 2011.

Enquiries of this nature have experienced a dramatic upswing since November, when it was at 33 per cent. While buy-to-let insurance customer enquiries fell away during the end of January to 19 per cent, this was from a high at the end of the year when these accounted for 25 per cent of all enquiries with unbiased.co.uk's Find a Mortgage Adviser search during October to December.  Despite this, landlords are still coming into the market as year-on-year searches are topping figures from a year ago, when they were at 14 per cent in January 2011.

Chief executive of unbiased.co.uk Karen Barrett comments: "Our latest figures reveal that enquiries for first-time buyer advice reached a 23-month high in January, suggesting real momentum in the FTB market and a real consumer demand for whole of market mortgage advisers to guide them on all the options available and help them to find the best solution."