Just 6% of first-time buyers who bought a property in 2007 – immediately before the crash – are still in negative equity.

The Countrywide chain estimates that only 22,000 of first-time buyers are still in negative equity seven years on – 15% fewer than a year ago, and around half the level that were still in negative equity seven years after the 1990 crash.

A total of 364,000 houses were sold to first-time buyers in 2007, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Falling house prices across the country meant that by late 2008, 60% of first-time buyers were in negative equity as the average value of their home fell by £30,000.

By 2009, any first-time buyer with a deposit of less than 17% saw themselves fall into negative equity. Throughout most of London and the south-east this was for a relatively short period of time.

In the north-east, it has taken over five years for the number of first-time buyers in negative equity to fall, from 68% in 2009 to 53% now.

Even households that are technically no longer in negative equity but hold equity of less than 5% will find borrowing money to climb the housing ladder difficult.

Conversely, in London rapid house price growth in 2010 meant that it took just nine months for the number of first-time buyers in negative equity to fall from 61% to just 4%.

The divergence in the performance of the UK housing market has seen the fortunes of first-time buyers vary enormously across the country.

In London, a first-time buyer with a 25-year mortgage who put down a 10% deposit at the peak of the market in 2007 would have seen their share of equity more than triple to 33% today.

However, in the north-east, a buyer putting down the same deposit at that time would still find themselves in negative equity today.