The number of people getting on to the property ladder has fallen to its lowest level since records began, Britain's biggest mortgage lender says.

Halifax said yesterday 174,000 people bought their first home during the first six months of 2003, 32 per cent fewer than during the first half of the previous year and the lowest level since the data were first recorded in 1974.

The group said first-time buyers were now having to find deposits averaging £18,950, 250 per cent higher than the £5,433 they needed ten years ago, on a property worth £103,294.

First-time buyers in London had to find the biggest deposits, putting down an average of £40,095 on a property costing £193,508, more than three times higher than in 1993.

But the average deposit had grown most in the South-East, where it has increased by 381 per cent to £29,669.

First-time buyers are having to find double-digit deposits in all regions except the North and Scotland, where they need an average of £8,140 and £9,162 respectively.

The research comes as market analyst Datamonitor yesterday said the average deposit paid by first-time buyers had increased by 250 per cent to £22,547 during the past five years.

It also found that at the end of 1998 first-time buyers were borrowing an average of £51,038, which represented 83 per cent of the price of their first home, but by the end of last year they were borrowing an average of £80,016, which represented just 77 per cent of the price of their property.

Halifax said first-time buyers had to borrow about 3.92 times their salary, compared with 2.46 times in 1993, while those in London needed 5.75 times and people in the South-East needing 4.98 times.

People buying their first home in the North needed to borrow only 2.55 times their income while those in Scotland and Yorkshire and the Humber needed 2.64 times and 2.74 times respectively.

The average age of a first-time buyer had risen slightly during the past ten years from 32 to 33.