There were 36 first-time house buyers during the 2023/24 financial year, the highest amount in the island for 10 years.

That is according to Chief Minister Alfred Cannan, who also stated that the island’s ‘housing need’ should be further assessed for a ‘greater level of understanding’ of the housing sector.

Speaking during Tynwald’s April sitting on Tuesday, Mr Cannan said: ‘An important thing we need to do is publish the objective assessment of housing need report. We urgently need some proper facts on the table.

‘We do know that there were 36 first-time buyers over the last year, the highest for 10 years, so we should be proud of some of the progress being made. However, there is a lot of work to do.’

MHK for Arbory, Castletown and Malew, Jason Moorhouse, also enquired what changes had been made to improve access to housing for people on low incomes since 2021.

The Chief Minister said: ‘There has been changes to earning thresholds which has been crucial. This allows more people to register their interest for the Department of Infrastructure’s “shared equity” first time buyer schemes.

‘There has also been changes to income thresholds for public sector housing, increasing the number of those eligible, while amendments were made to the rules for social security budgeting loans, which previously prevented individuals from being able to get a second budgeting loan.’

The Minister for Infrastructure, Tim Crookall, also confirmed figures for the number of people on the island’s housing waiting list.

He said: ‘In the second quarter of the 2021/22 financial year, there were 930 people on the housing waiting list. This has slightly decreased to 912 in the third quarter of 2023/24, a period of just over two years.’