Is Frome’s housing market broken for first-time buyers – or are we missing the real story?
Frome first-time buyers face high deposits, but falling mortgage burdens show the market may not be as bad as it looks.
By Laura Linham
12th May 2025 | Property News
As we move into early summer 2025, Frome's property market paints a difficult picture for first-time buyers.
With the average deposit for a first home in 2024 hitting £61,000, and the cost of living still biting, homeownership feels increasingly out of reach for many. But is it as bad as it looks?
Much of the public conversation focuses on the house price-to-earnings ratio (HPER). In the South West, that ratio stood at 3.23 in 1983. Today, it's 5.87 – suggesting it now takes nearly six times a first-time buyer's salary to purchase a home.
On the surface, it sounds dire.
The average first-time buyer home in Frome now costs £317,800. On a 95% mortgage with a 5% deposit (£15,890), repayments would come to about £1,517.70 a month over a 29-year term at 4.29%.
But experts argue this only tells part of the story.
A more useful measure of affordability is "mortgage payments as a percentage of take-home pay". This takes into account mortgage rates, income tax changes, and the actual impact on monthly budgets. It's the figure mortgage lenders use to assess affordability—and it paints a more nuanced picture.
Back in 1989, mortgage payments swallowed nearly 60% of a first-time buyer's take-home pay. In 2007, that figure was around 50%. Today? It's closer to 40.3% in the South West—still high, but not unprecedented.
The 1980s housing boom, the financial crash in 2008, and the Covid-driven market surge in 2020 all contributed to major fluctuations in affordability. And now, in 2025, falling interest rates and modest real wage growth are helping to reduce the monthly burden.
The headlines may shout about affordability being "broken", but the data suggests first-time buyers in Frome are slowly regaining ground.
With interest rates no longer rising and wage growth helping to ease monthly pressures, some first-time buyers may find this year more favourable than the last few.
So while the dream of owning a home still comes with its challenges, the outlook may not be as bleak as it seems—if you know what numbers really matter.
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