Last week, during his budget speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair darling, announced that the threshold for stamp duty for first time buyers only, would be raised to £250,000, thereby saving first time buyers up to £2,500 on the cost of buying a house.

Whilst this move has been welcomed by everybody across the housing and home owner loan industry, many first time buyers are still struggling to get onto the property ladder due to the high cost and tight lending criteria of home owner loan providers, as well as particularly low maximum loan to value ratios.

Now that the Government has launched a number of initiatives to help first time buyers, many people involved in the housing and home owner loan markets have called on banks and building societies to do their bit as well, by offering more competitively priced cheap loans at realistic loan to value levels, for first time buyers.

This opinion is shared by the building firm Galliford Try Homes. Their managing director Ian Baker believes it is now the turn of banks and building societies to give something to the first time buyer market.

Mr Baker said “Lenders should now look again at their high borrowing criteria and make constructive moves of their own to help this group of willing and able buyers on to the property ladder. It has been left to housebuilders to offer schemes like our own shared equity Easystart option or the Government backed Homebuy Direct equity loan initiative to stimulate the market for buyers with limited deposits.”

“While first time buyers will undoubtedly benefit from these savings, unless they can secure mortgages with realistic loan to values at competitive interest rates with reasonable arrangement fees, the stimulus could have limited impact.”