A report commissioned by The MarketPlace at Bradford & Bingley also found that 51% of Britons feel house prices are rising faster than they can save.
It revealed first-time buyers are getting older, taking out larger mortgages and increasingly relying on friends and family to help them pay for a home.
The First Time Buyer Report claimed half are paying off debts when struggling to raise a deposit, while 22% have given up on the idea of saving altogether and are pinning their hopes on a 100% mortgage.
One in four first time buyers - 24% - take between four and six years to buy their first home, the report said.
David Bitner, head of product operations at The MarketPlace, blamed house price inflation and a "buy now, pay later" culture that had left consumers with more debts than savings.
He said: "For every year they keep saving, property prices are rising that bit higher. With such a catch 22 situation it's not surprising many have had to hold off buying."
The report also found 36% of first-time buyers were over 30 years old and 17% were older than 35.
The difficulty of providing a deposit was highlighted by findings that 71% have savings of less than £11,000 - when the average property for new homeowners costs £93,925.
A third of those surveyed expected to spend between £95,000 and £145,000 on their first home, while 16% will spend between £145,000 and £195,000.
:: Research was based on responses from 1,214 people questioned by YouGov between 5-10 February. First-time buyers are defined as those who bought a property in the past 12 months and those who intend to buy in the next year.
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I currently work full time and work shifts. I have what I thought was a decent job, it is classed as a professional job. However I still live at home with my parents. I have been looking for a new home for approx 1 1/2 years. I am single and so will be living on my own and paying all bills by myself, however with the cost of houses now I just cannot afford it. I have some savings but not enough to be able to put down a good deposit and have money to make improvements if needed. I sometimes wonder what the benefit of working in this country is ????
I'm sure if I fell pregnant and was a single parent I would be given a house and even better have most of my bills paid for me. I know it sounds like sour grapes...or maybe it's just an honest comment from someone who has worked full time from the age of 16 always paid tax and national insurance, Ive made all these contrubutions and everyone seems to benefit apart from hard working people who actually make the payments, month in month out.
The fact of the matter is that there is plenty of affordable housing around Manchester - it just tends to be in areas that people don't want to live (hence the prices). However wise buyers can still seek out bargains in areas that are being regenerated and will reap the benefits further down the line. Its just deciding whether or not you're prepared to live in more 'frontline' areas that suffer from crime, anti-social behaviour and poor facilities for long enough to see the area improved (eg Hulme). Also the mortgage providers need to be more imaginative with shared loans etc., after all its not in their interest if the the housing market stagnates due to unaffordability.
My partner and I were in our thirties before we managed to get a good enough credit rating to get a mortgage (we'd spent years paying off student loans). We'd never incurred any CCJs, never been to court or anything like that, and, like Claire below, had always worked hard to pay our bills. In the end, we had to get a cash back mortgage, and we couldn't even afford the deposit, not having rich or generous parents. We had to borrow the deposit from my partner's boss. We JUST managed to get a rather dilapidated house in Chorlton, just before property prices exploded there. We were left with no money to spare, so in the 7 years we've lived in the house, have never been able to afford to improve or even decorate it, but we still count ourselves lucky. At least we HAVE a house. Many of our friends can't even get on the property ladder, in the first place, and these people are professional, relatively well paid individuals, and/or couples, who, in their 30s, are still living in over-priced one-bedroom flats in divey areas. For a whole lot less than our house is worth you could buy a farm with dozens of acres of land in France or Belgium. Can't say if I wasn't lucky enough to be on the property ladder in this country that I wouldn't be tempted to make that jump over the channel.