With the housing market now starting to open up as business attempts to return to a relative level of normality following lockdown restrictions being imposed as a result of the pandemic, new research has just revealed that job insecurity is now the biggest barrier to owning a home for the first time in ten years.

Carried out by the Building Societies Association (BSA), the study found that this has now overtaken raising a deposit as the biggest barrier, although it was also found that approximately half of all buyers and sellers who were active before the crisis either didn’t leave the market during lockdown or say they’ll return within six months.

Some 34 per cent of buyers have already started the buying process already, or plan to do so within the next four weeks. And 29 per cent of sellers have plans to put their property on the market within a month, or have kept it on the market throughout lockdown.

Commenting on the findings, BSA head of mortgages and housing Paul Broadhead said: “The market must keep moving. New build production will be considerably reduced with streamlined workforces returning to sites following a period of inactivity.

“If people also delay selling their existing properties, another flow of housing stock will be effectively blocked. However, it is good to see some intent to return to the market from consumers.�

New analysis by Knight Frank has also just revealed that offers are now being accepted at record rates in the UK property market, with the ratio between asking prices and achieved prices narrowing.

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