More home owners are feeling positive about buying a property during 2016, but times are getting tougher for first-timers, data has revealed.

Halifax’s latest Housing Market Confidence Tracker covering the final quarter of 2015, found the proportion who think it would be a good time to buy and to sell property has risen to 39 per cent, up three points on the previous quarter, while 15% of people think the next 12 months would be a bad time to do both.

However, first-time buyers could still be in for a tough time as deposits are seen as the biggest barrier to getting on to the property ladder.

The proportion identifying rising property prices as a barrier to buying a property has risen to 37%, up 6 points on the previous quarter and the highest this figure has been since the survey’s inception

Raising a deposit was cited as the main barrier to buying property among 58% of people, followed by job security at 42%.

Concerns over interest rate rises have, perhaps unsurprisingly given the economic climate, fallen down 5 points from the last quarter to 11 per cent of respondents.

Craig McKinlay, mortgages director at Halifax, said: “Difficulties in raising a deposit, concerns about job security and high property prices remain the main barriers to people buying a home. The proportion identifying rising prices has risen to the highest in the survey’s history. The decline in affordability that this highlights is expected to dampen housing demand and property price growth over the medium term.”

Separately, the number of first-time buyers dipped nearly 5% last month, estate agents Reeds Rains and Your Move reported this morning.

The two agents forecast, from their own data, that first-time buyer numbers fell by 1,300 to stand at 26,600 during December.

During the course of last year, numbers of first-time buyers moved only slightly, up by just 1.1%.

The average first-time buyer price in the UK stood at £156,406 by the end of last year, skewed by significant regional variations.

In London, the average first-time buyer paid £343,686.