THE AVERAGE cost of a house for first-time buyers in the South West was the third highest in the UK in 2016.

New figures from Halifax show first-time buyers in the South West paid £200,465 on average for their first home. The average deposit was £34,306, working out at 17 per cent. 

The South West ranked third highest among 11 other regions.  The most expensive area was London at £402,692, followed by the South East at £272,777. 

The cheapest area for first-time buyers was Northern Ireland, with first-time buyers finding houses for £115,269 and paying a 14 per cent deposit.

The new figures from Halifax says more first-time buyers climbed onto the property ladder in 2016 than any other year since 2007.  As the cost of housing has increased, first-time buyers have been taking out longer mortgages.

In 2006, just over a third (36 per cent) had mortgages lasting beyond the traditional 25-year period. In 2016, 60 per cent of mortgages were for 25 years or more.

According to Halifax, the average age of a first-time buyer is 30-years-old. 

Martin Ellis, a housing economist at Halifax, said record low mortgage rates, high employment levels and government schemes such as Help to Buy have helped first-time buyers.

The UK-wide Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme ended in 2016, but other schemes are still available.

He said: "Across the regions there is a contrasting picture. In London - which has one of the youngest populations in the UK - the average house price for a typical first-time buyer is now more than an eye-watering £400,000 with an average deposit of over £100,000 - more than twice that in the South East, the next most expensive region."

Halifax used a range of sources for the research, including its own housing statistics database and figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).