ACCORDING to a recent Zoopla House Price Index, one in three homes was bought for cash in 2023 as rising mortgage rates squeezed buying power. As a result, the share of cash buyers rose from one-fifth over the previous five years to one-third in 2023, as low demand and weak buying power saw national house-price growth fall from 9.2% in late 2022 to -1.1% at the end of 2023. Driven by ever-increasing rents, first-time buyers were the largest group of home buyers in 2023, followed by downsizers paying in cash, with upsizers the most at risk from higher mortgages, as they typically buy bigger homes with larger mortgages.
Despite the prospect of lower mortgage rates in the coming months,
