First-time buyers in London using Gen H’s income booster are getting onto the property ladder six years earlier than average, giving them a potential financial advantage of more than £130,000, according to new data from the lender.

Gen H found that the median age of its first-time buyers in the capital using an income booster is 29, compared with 35 for those purchasing without one. The earlier start allows homeowners to spend those additional years building equity rather than paying rent.

To highlight the potential impact, the lender modelled the experience of a typical first-time buyer who purchased a home in 2019. Over six years, based on average mortgage rates, house prices and rents, that buyer would have built £37,427 in equity repayments and gained £62,401 through price appreciation – a total of £99,828 in equity.

During the same period, an equivalent renter would have spent £132,464 on rent, without accumulating any asset value. Gen H calculated that the homeowner would therefore be £130,595 better off than the renter after six years.

The lender launched its income booster product in 2020, enabling friends or family to go on a mortgage application with the buyer to increase borrowing potential. The booster shares legal responsibility for the loan but is not required to make payments if the homeowner meets their obligations.

So far this year, 32.7% of Gen H’s mortgage applications have included at least one income booster. On average, homeowners without a booster would need to borrow eight times their income to buy a property, whereas adding a booster reduces that multiple to just 2.7 times the group’s combined income – making ownership achievable much sooner.

Pete Dockar, chief commercial officer at Gen H, said: “Owning a home brings so many intangible benefits that dramatically increase the quality of a person’s life – investment in a community, a sense of security and safety – but we can’t overlook the financial benefit it can bring, too.

“A £130,000 leg up is huge in your mid-thirties – but imagine how this advantage could grow over the decades.

“And there is no extra cost to adding an income booster – this is simply homeownership, sooner, and that benefit could literally last a lifetime.”