First-time buyers turn from rural areas to Britain’s regional cities

Dundee, Scotland’s fourth-largest city, recorded the most significant jump in the number of first-time buyer inquires over the decade, at 176%. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.

An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.