Number of people climbing the housing ladder reaches three-year high as soaring house prices give buyers a boost to up-size 337,500 home owners with mortgage moved house in 2013, up 3% on 2012 Experts claim house price increase of 7.5% boosted profits for movers First-time buyers have increased by about a fifth since 2012 Experts hailed the 7.5 per cent increase in house prices for boosting the number of house movers The number of people moving up the housing ladder reached a three-year high last year as rising house prices boosted the amount of cash they had tied up in their existing property, a study reveals. Around 337,500 home owners with a mortgage moved house in 2013, the highest number since 2010, researchers at Lloyd's Bank Home Review claim. The report hailed rising house prices as the key to the increase as homeowners raked in enough profit to up-size. House prices increased by 7.5 per cent across the country over 2013 to reach £173,467 on average, according to an earlier study by Halifax. A similar rise is predicted for this year. And deposits have increased by six per cent, with homeowners putting down an average of £76,398 on their new property - which equates to around a third of the price. Buyers in London, where house prices have been surging ahead of the rest of the country, typically put down a deposit of almost double the national average last year, at £144,505. This is almost four times the average deposit put down by home movers in Northern Ireland, where house prices have only just started to stabilise, at £36,951. There were around 265,000 first-time buyers in 2013 according to Lloyds' estimates, a figure which was up by around a fifth on 2012. The Government's new flagship Help to Buy scheme, which launched in October and has been signed up to by lenders representing most of the mortgage market, gives both first-time buyers and home movers with five per cent deposits a helping hand to buy a property by offering them state-backed mortgages. But critics of the scheme argue that it is adding to the upward pressure on house prices as confidence returns to the market and encouraging borrowers to over-stretch themselves. First-time buyers are also up by a fifth since 2012 as the Help To Buy scheme helps with deposits They say that the Government should instead be concentrating on increasing the supply of homes for people to choose from. Marc Page, Lloyds Bank mortgages director, said: As house prices have increased over the last 12 months, we're seeing more people look to take the next step on the housing ladder. 'This year we'll see Help to Buy enable more home owners to progress to the next rung of the ladder, and as a result we would again expect the number of home movers to increase in 2014.' The report used a combination of Lloyds' own calculations as well as figures from various sources including the Council of Mortgage Lenders.