Longer terms, joint purchases and family support reshape how buyers enter an increasingly stretched housing market
First-time buyers are no longer entering the housing market alone. Affordability constraints are forcing many to abandon traditional routes onto the ladder, turning instead to joint ownership, longer mortgage terms and layered financial support.
The shift is not just behavioural, it is redefining how deals are structured and assessed.
New routes onto the ladder
“I think people are no longer buying in sole names,” said Sadia Mehmood, mortgage adviser at The Mortgage Mum. “It’s a lot of joint applications, and it’s not necessarily boyfriend, girlfriend or husband, wife.”
In practice, that now includes friends and even colleagues. What was once a last resort is becoming a standard route into homeownership, “that’s a big risk, and you’re risking the friendship, but that’s what it’s come to.”
The underlying constraint is simple. “One income is just impossible now.”
That pressure is reshaping every part of the transaction. Buyers are combining incomes, drawing on Lifetime ISAs and developer incentives, and increasingly relying on family support to close the gap.
“Mum and dad’s gifted deposits are a massive thing,” Mehmood said, though contributions are now extending beyond immediate family, testing the limits of lender criteria.
Attitudes to borrowing are shifting just as quickly, with longer mortgage terms, once used selectively, now becoming routine. “Thirty-five, 40 years. People just want the longest because rates are still higher and monthly payments are up.”
The rationale is straightforward. Larger loans demand lower monthly costs, even if that means carrying debt for decades.
That same pressure is altering how buyers approach income. “You’re seeing a lot of people with second jobs. Sometimes two, even three jobs, to make ends meet and use it for mortgage purposes.”
Expectations meet reality
While buyers are becoming more resourceful, their expectations are not always aligned with lender criteria.
“We’re all on social media. We’re going to highlight the lowest rate, but clients see that and think, ‘that’s really cheap, I want that,’” Mehmood said.
What follows is a growing disconnect between headline rates and real-world eligibility. Deposits, loan-to-value thresholds and affordability checks quickly narrow those options.
“They don’t always understand the criteria, and it doesn’t work [for] their circumstances.”
The gap is particularly evident among self-employed borrowers. “They think they can go onto a family member’s company and get a mortgage straight away, but lenders want to see that for 12 months for sustainability.”
Credit behaviour is another emerging pressure point. Short-term borrowing, particularly through buy-now-pay-later products, is increasingly visible in applications. Even minor issues can carry weight. “The lender doesn’t really care. They look at black and white.”
At the same time, the profile of the first-time buyer continues to shift. Buyers are older, deposits take longer to build, and more are looking beyond traditional locations. Hybrid working has widened search areas, making longer commutes a viable trade-off for affordability. For many, moving further out is no longer a lifestyle choice, but a financial necessity.
The result is a more complex, more constrained first-time buyer market. Brokers are increasingly acting as translators between borrower expectations and lender reality, guiding clients through layered affordability, stricter criteria and fewer straightforward routes onto the ladder.
