Mortgage interest bills for home movers have hit a 17-year high as higher borrowing costs make it harder to move up the property ladder.
People who moved house in July spent 14.4pc of their income on mortgage interest, up from 13.5pc a year earlier and the highest proportion since November 2008, according to figures from UK Finance.
This was double the 7.8pc of their income they spent on mortgage interest four years ago.
The data track borrowers who have previously held a mortgage, which means they are not first-time buyers but are upsizing or downsizing.
Their average age was 41, suggesting they were primarily families moving house.
These buyers will also not benefit from Andy Burnham’s new Your First Home scheme, launched in an attempt to boost activity in the housing market.
Your First Home is focused on first-time buyers, offering them a 20pc government-backed equity loan when purchasing a new-build home.
Lucian Cook, of Savills estate agents, warned that “second-steppers” – people who are looking to move on from their first home – are having “real difficulty trading up the housing ladder”.
These buyers are facing not only rising mortgage costs, but have largely failed to accumulate any housing wealth, Mr Cook said, “particularly those who have been living in flats where actually they may have seen some of their equity eroded”.
