First-time buyers paid an average of £128,225 last month, estate agents Reeds Rains and Your Move report this morning.

The firms, part of LSL, say that there were 28,100 first-time buyer completions in October.

The price they paid was £4,475 up on the same month last year.

The number of transactions was down from a high of 30,700 first-time buyer purchases in July, the highest number since August 2007.

The difference in volumes between July and October this year represents a drop of 8.5% or 2,600 fewer sales.

Adrian Gill, director of Your Move and Reeds Rains, said that many first-time buyers would be holding off until the new year.

But he emphasised that sales totals are still higher relative to the previous year, with no signs of a slide back to the “doldrums of 2012 and 2013”.

Both the data and Gill’s remarks were made before Wednesday’s Budget Statement, which set out its stall on starter homes for first-time buyers.