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Buying your first home is one of those milestones in life, like getting married or having children – it’s just one of those things that people expect to be able to do as they move into adulthood, though it’s something we’re increasingly told is further out of reach than ever before for the younger generation.

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But rather than just accepting that mysterious ‘market forces’ are preventing people from getting their first toe-hold on the property ladder, We’d like to examine some of the realities behind the process which make property ownership difficult even for second and third time buyers, and almost impossible for those taking that first step.

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The financial cost

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The most obvious barrier is of course financial cost. Property prices continue to rise (with occasional fluctuations) while wages fail to meet them. Worse still, increased prices and steadily increasing rental costs mean that obtaining that necessary deposit has become all but impossible for many. 10 or even 5% of the purchase price is less and less easy to find when the average purchase price is around £250,000.

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There are of course various assistances available. Affordable Home Ownership schemes, shared ownership and so on, but these rarely ‘solve’ the problem, rather they re-frame it. You can’t own your home but you can own a bit of it while paying rent on the rest.

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There’s also the oddest form of FTB assistance which is the SDLT exemption. A fantastic idea in principle but one which comes with caveats – you can only claim it if all parties meet the definition of a First Time Buyer, which means that none of the buyers can ever have owned ‘property or a major interest in property’ anywhere in the world. That includes property which you might have inherited (or a share of which you might have inherited). It also means if Mum and/or Dad decide to go on the mortgage to help out (an increasingly common scenario) then it won’t be available either if they own/have ever owned property.

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