For the past twelve months or more now, first time buyers have had a particularly difficult time trying to get themselves on to the housing and home owner loan markets.

The difficult economic conditions and tight lending criteria from banks and building societies when it comes to maximum loan to value levels, have meant that many individuals who want to buy a house simply have not been able to afford the monthly loan repayments, or raise sufficient deposit.

But the latest figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) have revealed that December last year saw the highest number of new loans to first time buyers over the past two years. The CML say that this is largely due to a last minute rush of first time buyers taking loans out on properties valued below £175,000 in order to get in before the end of the stamp duty holiday.

There were a total of 24,900 new home owner loan granted to first time buyers in December, with a total value of £2.9 billion. This equates to an increase of 26 per cent in loan numbers in the space of one month alone.

55 per cent of these new loans were on properties valued at less than £175,000 as buyers rushed to beat the stamp duty deadline at the end of the year. For those buyers who failed to complete prior to the end of December, their purchase will cost them up to an additional £1,750 in stamp duty, provided that the property is valued between £125,000 and £175,000.

The majority of new home owner loans taken out towards the end of the year were on a repayment basis, rather than interest only and the typical first time buyer was spending around 21 per cent of their gross salary on their loan repayments each month.