Buy-to-let landlords and retirees risk crowding out first-time buyers

Newcomers already battling landlords armed with an average £100k deposit will in April face a wave of retirees armed with pension pot lump sums

First-time buyers have been warned that they face increasing competition for properties as figures showed that buy-to-let landlords are looking for mortgages with deposits averaging almost £100,000.

Data from the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) based on searches through the UK’s main price comparison sites showed that in the final quarter of 2014, people searching for a buy-to-let mortgage typically said they had £99,914 in equity to put down.