Money Box Live: First-Time Buyers
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For some it's the dream, for others it's the plan, for most it's an effort. On this programme we look at buying a first home. It's rarely easy but plenty of people are making the jump. The property site Zoopla says first time buyers accounted for 40% of sales in the first half of the year.
But the picture can be so different depending on where you live and how much family support you can tap into. We'll hear from those who've just bought as well as others struggling to make it work because their salaries are out of step with prices.
Felicity Hannah is joined by Richard Donnell who heads the research and insights team at the property website Zoopla and Jane King a mortgage adviser at the firm, Ash Ridge.
Presenter: Felicity Hannah Producers: James Graham Editor: Jess Quayle Senior News Editor: Sara Wadeson (This episode was first broadcast at 3pm on Radio 4 on Wednesday the 22nd October 2025).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it. |
| 0:13.3 | But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go? |
| 0:19.2 | I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it. |
| 0:24.3 | This defines your life. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm ready to talk and ready to listen. |
| 0:28.3 | I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this. |
| 0:33.9 | Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, first-time buyers are on the move. |
| 0:41.6 | They now account for 40% of property sales. But in today's Moneybox Live podcast, we'll be looking at how the picture can be really different across the UK, across different incomes, and across people buying with or without family help. |
| 0:55.3 | And we'll hear from plenty of people who want to buy but can't. |
| 0:58.4 | Sometimes I feel like I've been sold a bit of a lie, |
| 1:01.6 | that all you have to do is be money savvy and save to get a property. |
| 1:05.2 | I've done that, but now I've found that I still can't afford to buy. |
| 1:08.7 | We'll be hearing more from Eliza later on. |
| 1:10.7 | But let's start with someone who is so close to getting the keys to her first home. |
| 1:15.3 | I went to meet 29-year-old Rebecca, who's buying an apartment in Warrington, Cheshire. |
| 1:20.0 | We met outside the building she's about to move into. |
| 1:23.1 | She's using a 10% deposit to buy a two-bedroom flat for £15,000. |
| 1:28.2 | So this is the building where I very much hope to be moving into. |
| 1:32.7 | Very exciting. Which one's going to be your flat? |
| 1:35.3 | So it's at the back, it's on the top floor, the second floor, and it overlooks a path and trees. |
... |
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