A return to 95% mortgages will boost the property market: Your Move

Mortgage lenders should start offering 90 and 95 per cent loan to value ratio mortgages again to enliven the market.

This is the opinion of Gareth Samples, sales director at estate agency network Your Move, who claims that the market is not going to improve unless such action is taken.

Mr Samples said that now represent a "unique" time and it is increasingly difficult for fist-time buyers to obtain a mortgage unless they have a large deposit.

The sales director believes that the market will not return to a stable position until there are freely available mortgages at "decent rates."

"If the first-time buyers are not there and the buy-to-let investors are not there then there is no bottom of the chain," he explained.

Recent research by the Co-operative Bank and Places for People revealed that the typical first-time buyer felt that they had to save in excess of £19,000 to get their foot on the property ladder.