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Couples buying their first home on low incomes must save a year's worth of joint take-home pay to get onto the housing ladder, say surveyors.

A couple in the bottom quartile of earners in the UK needs £27,738 to pay the up-front fees, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

But the credit crunch has made it more difficult to climb onto the first rung.

Those able to find a bigger deposits benefit from reduced mortgage repayments as a result.

But rising fuel and food bills has meant that household finances would remain stretched.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that in May the average first-time buyer’s mortgage stood at £113,500.