Can You Still Buy A House In 2026? Lifetime ISA Changes, New ISA Rules & First-Time Buyer Tips - Brian Byrnes (Moneybox)

The Money Gains Podcast

Brian Byrnes from Moneybox joins the show to discuss whether first-time buyers can still afford a home in 2026, highlighting that while house price inflation shifts the goalposts by roughly nine months and £3,500 on average, it remains entirely

Key takeaways

One person every 10 minutes successfully bought their first home in 2025 using a Lifetime ISA through Moneybox's platform.
First-time buyers face an average £3,500 shortfall and must save for nine extra months due to house price inflation outpacing deposit savings.

Main topics

First-time home buying feasibility in 2026
Lifetime ISA changes and government proposals

Notable quotes

It is absolutely still possible to get onto the property ladder today, despite what all of the headlines will tell us.

Conclusion

The episode provides a data-driven counter-narrative to pessimistic housing and investment headlines,

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Brian, welcome back. Thanks for having me. This is round four, I think. Speaker 1 (0:04) Yeah, always delightful to be here. Speaker 2 (0:06) Wow. Thank you very much, sir. I'm not going to hang around today because I think this topic is one close to my heart. We're just talking off camera. I've got family members looking to be first-time buyers or moving house. I've just moved house myself. I know how difficult it is. But your research model is basically a discipline saver against real house price data. Be straight with me. You're seeing the data. You're on the ground. You know exactly what's going on. Is it actually possible for someone to buy a house anymore or is the finishing line getting a little bit away from them, do you think? Speaker 1 (0:39) Look, it's Speaker 2 (0:39) a Speaker 1 (0:39) little bit of both. The finishing line is definitely moving, as that data shows. But going back to the first part of your question, I think it's really important to tell people that, yes, it is still absolutely possible to get onto the property ladder today, despite what all of the headlines will tell us. I'm not saying that it's easy. But if you look at Moneybox data, and we have the largest community of aspiring first-time buyers in the UK, there's well over a million people saving with us into a lifetime ISA to try and get onto the property ladder. One person every 10 minutes successfully did that in 2025. So that's one first-time buyer every 10 minutes getting the keys to their first home. And sometimes the human story behind those numbers can get kind of left behind, but we can talk about that in a second. It is absolutely still possible. But yes, the goalposts are shifting. And that research that we showed you said that even somebody starting off with a kind of five-year plan to get a deposit together, they can be super disciplined. They can pay into their lifetime ISA. They can get the bonus. By the time they get to the point where they thought they were at the finish line, what the finish line would have been at the start of their plan. the goalposts have already shifted because of house price inflation and cost of living, right? And shifted to the tune of about nine months and three and a half thousand pounds. So they have to save again and keep going. And actually from a behavioral perspective, what we have seen when it comes to people saving for a deposit, there's kind of two points that are the most difficult. from a psychological perspective. The first one is when you first get started, because you're like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to save up 12, 13 grand, which is the average deposit that we see on our platform? You're just like, this feels like absolutely miles away. When you're kind of in the habit of it, in the middle, it's not too bad from a behavioral perspective, because you just kind of get into the habit of monthly and the government bonus that the lifetime ISA pays you, again, that reinforces really good habits. And then the second part that's really difficult from a behavioural perspective, when you're just close enough, the last kind of 12 months where you've been kind of diligently saving away and as the goalposts start to shift, psychologically and behaviourally, that part can be quite difficult. And yeah, as the research shows, that can take an extra nine months beyond what you thought it was going to take you. And Speaker 2 (2:50) when Speaker 1 (2:50) you Speaker 2 (2:50) say Speaker 1 (2:50) psychologically... Speaker 2 (2:52) How do you mean? Is it that it's really difficult to just keep going or do you see them stop saving as much or do they stop completely? What's happening there? Speaker 1 (3:02) It's more of a kind of anecdotal thing when we speak to our customers. If they've been saving, people can save like on average, really, for our platform, it's about four and a half years that people will save into their lifetime, I say, to get onto the property ladder. But that can also mean it can be kind of seven to 10 years for people as well. And that can be quite a long time. And anecdotally, when we speak to them, when they feel like they're pretty close, it can just feel like a little bit of a slog to finally get over the line, press the button and get those keys. But as I say, 2025 alone, one person did that every 10 minutes. And that's what we need to emphasize, because if you look at the headlines, it says that, of course, we're still in a cost of living crisis. That's not going to go away. Prices aren't going to come back down. Interest rates are higher than they were five years ago. And house prices, even though they aren't going up quite as much as they were, they're still not coming kind of back down. So it is some of the hardest buying conditions that we've seen in decades. So those headlines are out there. But what we need to do is keep telling people that it is possible and keep giving people the motivation and the tools. Speaker 1 (4:07) There's so many benefits to people of getting onto the property ladder beyond just kind of housing security and that those benefits stick with them for life as well. Speaker 2 (4:15) So let's unpack that a touch because I think we sort of breezed over it from like a housing and inflation standpoint as well. And walk us through what's actually happening with that nine month delay and that three and a half grand kind of shortfall. Speaker 1 (4:26) What's Speaker 2 (4:27) actually going on behind the scenes to sort of kick that into play? So Speaker 1 (4:31) basically what's happening in the background there is just house price inflation. Like we can see it. day in and day out. And as I mentioned, houses aren't going up as much as they once were. But from the time that somebody started out, on average, four and a half years ago, compared to when they're ready to press the button, they are facing a three and a half grand shortfall, which they need to keep saving for an additional nine months in order to make up. So as I say, it's just the price of houses going up as it's done in the UK for decades and decades. Speaker 2 (4:56) Gotcha. So if you are then starting soon now, or you're perhaps within that category, would it be sensible to then factor that in now so you're not getting to the end and then having that kind of psychological barrier of that nine months-ish on average that you've got to push through? Speaker 1 (5:13) Yeah, I think so. As much as you kind of reasonably can do. And we always say to people when they're building their financial plan to get a deposit together, try and build as much kind of flexibility in there as you possibly can do. For some people, they may end up getting a little bit of a bargain from a property perspective and buying somewhere a little bit less than they thought. But our data shows on average, the goalposts do shift out a bit. So be prepared psychologically to save a little bit longer and crucially, don't get disheartened because we have millions of people out there now doing all of the right things when it comes to saving, investing and getting onto the property ladder. So it's really, really important that we tell people that this dream is still possible and you can still independently, independent of bank and mum and dad. get onto the property ladder and get those keys to your first home. Speaker 2 (6:01) Yeah, no, it's such a good point. I think you like, you articulate it really well because, you know, we were talking about this, my sister's sort of potentially, you know, I could probably say it publicly now, she might come for me in the comments if she hasn't told her friends, but she's moving back from Australia and it's like, she's going through this whole thing now of like, lifetime i saw yeah how do i open it what do i do how you know how long do i have to have it open for all of this jazz and it's quite scary for for people just even just looking up at those numbers and another side of that factor is just like well we found this house and yeah um i need a 25 grand deposit i'm like you don't need 25 grand you need a lot more than that yeah Speaker 1 (6:42) and Speaker 2 (6:42) And I think a lot of people, especially young people, when they're going to look at that and they just think, well, you know, that's all I need. But actually, there's quite a lot of other costs associated with buying a house. Yeah. How do you factor those into people's plans? And do you help people understand that too? Speaker 1 (6:56) Yeah. So for a long time, we've been putting financial education in the app of like, this is how you save for a house. And it's not just the housing deposit, which the Lifetime IC is incredibly good for. You also need a fund. alongside that for all things like solicitors, fees, conveyancing, all of the really boring stuff. And then ideally, if you possibly can, you're saving for things like the more fun things, like the housing renovations, putting your own stamp on the place when you get in. So we've been doing that from a financial education perspective for a while. We now have the Aurora engine that we have in the app, which gives people a guidance financial plan. And again, if somebody says that I'm looking to save for a house, the plan that we give them Most likely will include a lifetime ISA for the deposit, but will also include an account beside that to save for all of those incidentals as well. Because you don't just want to have the deposit money because, as we know, getting onto the property ladder can be expensive outside of the deposit as well. Speaker 2 (7:52) Telling me, man. When I moved recently, it obviously wasn't first-time buyer anymore. We had that part set aside for legals. conversing for surveys, all of it. And then also like we had like a new house fund pot, which was like, well, guess what? Our three seater sofa that we've got in that house doesn't fit in that house. And we've got to switch all our furniture around. We've got to buy white goods because ours were built in. And like there's so many other things and you've got to factor all of that in. But by making that plan ahead of time just allowed us to like. move in okay we know everything's paid for we've already picked everything out it's arriving x y and z and it took the stress off massively yeah Speaker 1 (8:35) but Speaker 2 (8:35) when we first moved into our first place like we were like what's this 500 pounds cost that we've got now like where's that come from why are we paying this and it is extremely stressful so even just it doesn't take long but just spending a little bit of time getting up to speed on and like some of the costs that are associated with moving can be really helpful Speaker 1 (8:55) We moved into our place five or six years ago and we were lucky enough and we kind of saved for a while and we had 15 grand alongside the deposit, right? In order to do what we thought would be the fun stuff when we moved into the house. And we had all of these dreams, oh, we're going to do this, as you say, the sofas, all that sort of stuff. And it just goes as soon as you scratch beneath the surface of a house, you're like, okay, well, that's going to cost 500 quid, that's going to cost a gram, whatever that is. And it goes kind of pretty quickly. So yeah, obviously dream scenarios you've got. a fund alongside the deposit fund to do all of that stuff. But we're talking about this, like, I wouldn't say negatively in terms of like the costs of buying, but like you see the benefits as well. And again, we see it from a customer perspective day in and day out where. People come to us on the average age of about 26 for a lifetime ISA to start saving. Oh, really? 26? Yeah. And then they save for kind of, let's say, on average, kind of four and a half years, right? Because... So that's actually lower than the average first Speaker 2 (9:55) -time buyer across the nation. Speaker 1 (9:56) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, the lifetime ISA has brought down the average age of the first-time buyer, which is a brilliant thing. Yeah. Because getting onto the property ladder earlier helps you build up that. housing security, financial security, you can quite quickly turn to other financial goals after that. And that's what we see our customers doing because we and the government have built a product that incentivizes the right behaviors on a monthly basis. So they're in that habit and we have helped them hit that first major financial goal early in life. So quite quickly, they just turn around and go, right. what's next? What do I have to build up next? And usually that's rebuilding your emergency fund because you're absolutely broke after purchasing a property. Or it could be, right, I need to start investing or I need to sort my pensions out. So helping people believe that it's an achievable goal to get onto the property ladder and get the keys to their first home is the key to financial security for the rest of their life. And we have to keep helping people to do that. Speaker 2 (10:52) You make a good point there because one of the stats that you sent me is that people are saving more than ever. So it's £475 a month, which is up from £344, which is quite a significant jump. And people still feel like they're falling behind. Why do you think that is? Speaker 1 (11:07) I think a lot of it is, A, down to the reality of the cost of living crisis, and also down to the perception of everything is just getting more expensive. So, yes, inflation has come down, and on a headline basis, it's somewhere between 2 % and 3%, and not up at 10 % or 11%, which it was a couple of years ago. But if you look on a five-year basis, prices are still up 30 % compared to what we are mentally anchored to. So even if you're saving 470 quid a month compared to 350, it still feels like the price of everything is outpacing how much you can save. So it's kind of that running battle to try and keep up with the price of just day-to-day living, but also house price inflation as well. Speaker 2 (11:48) Yeah, and I think like stress testing these things about... you know, moving into your house or when you are saving for these things, like, okay, these things are more expensive, can just make you feel like a little bit less like you're behind. And when you, we do these videos all the time, they always do well. Every single time they do well, they, when you say, oh, like, you know, the numbers is two and five have less than a thousand, which is FCA data now, which has actually gone up. It was one in four. So it's, that's like, and then when you say these things. You kind of take a perspective back. You're saving £470 a month. It's huge. You've done, you're ahead of two, what's that number? 40 % of the mental maths immediately in two months. So I think you have to sort of take yourself for these things with a pinch of salt. And it could feel like you're falling behind, but I think that's very, very dated depending on your expenses and your life and your responsibilities. Speaker 1 (12:46) Yeah, and the other point that I'll make just from a demographic perspective, right, is that 80 % of our aspiring first-time buyers earn less than £40,000. So they are still getting onto the property ladder, as I say, on average, four and a half years, and one person every 10 minutes. So these are not people on absolutely ridiculous salaries. As I say, £40,000 is still over the UK average, but 80 % of people... trying to get onto the property ladder with us, are less than £40,000. Again, and they're using the lifetime ISA where you can get £1,000 free from the government every year. So again, we just have to bring it back and say, even if you're on, it's still a decent salary, but not a ridiculous salary. It's still possible to do that based on your salary and not just based on bank of mum and dad, which again, the papers and media would have you believe that that's all that happens now is it's inheritance money, which obviously does happen. But it's not the reality of what we see day to day with our customers. Speaker 2 (13:42) Which is good. It's exactly kind of a positive outlook that we should see from this because the news is very negative. 97 % of those stories, I looked them up, were negative around first-time buyers. Yeah. Which is just scary. Especially if you're just seeing this every day. You're 25 years old, you're trying to do the right thing and you're just seeing this. You sort of give up and go to point. But actually the data shows it's positive movement towards getting on the ladder. And you're getting on there a lot less than the 34 now is the average first time buyer. But then 31 with the lifetime ISA with your data. Speaker 1 (14:16) That's what I find myself spending most of my time doing. And not just when it comes to getting onto the property ladder, right? It's with investing as well. It's like, don't believe the headlines. If you believe the headlines over the last kind of three, three and a half years, you would think. The world is ending. Stock markets are falling off a cliff, all of