A house price warning for first-time buyers While the biggest beneficiaries have been those with large deposits to put down, there has been more take-up of credit by first-time buyers. Industry figures show there were more first-time buyers in 2012 - 216,200 - than there has been since the peak of the property boom in 2007. The year-on-year increase in lending to those buyers was up 14pc higher by the tail-end of 2012. This resurgence helps explain why the prices paid by these buyers are suddenly rising so fast. And the trend may be only nascent. Chancellor George Osborne's flagship Help to Buy policy began, in part, on Monday. Buyers of newbuild properties can apply to the Government, via housebuilders, to top their 5pc deposits up to 25pc via a five-year interest-free loan. A second wave of the scheme, which in its current outline would be open to all mortgage borrowers, will be launched next April. The policy, it seems, is to force up house prices by hook or crook because it makes Britons feel wealthier and encourages spending. And sharp falls in property prices would be disastrous for Britain's still-fragile banking sector. Of course higher prices simply make it harder for first-time buyers. That ratio went as low as 3.07 in the worst phase of the 1990s property crash. Would-be buyers should be warned that house prices are vastly overpriced - and the Government is determined to push them further. March readings House prices to wages ratio 4.51 (estimate)