If young people are to save more for their future there is a powerful incentive: find a way of allowing them to stop renting and buy their own home. Meeting monthly mortgage payments is a way of forced saving, and one that brings an immediate benefit – somewhere to live – whereas with the other main means of saving, paying in to a pension, the plusses are in the distant future.

That is why a decision by the Nationwide Building Society is so important. It has revolutionised the rules on home lending this week by offering first-time buyers mortgages of up to six-times earnings. It is also offering a rate of below five per cent, and a new maximum loan size of £750,000.

The lower rate reflects the general fall in the cost of money, and the higher size inflation more generally, but the stunner is that six-times earnings deal. Up to now, the normal top-end has been four times earnings, maybe four and a half, while the traditional prudent level favoured by financial advisers is lower still.

There are obvious risks for both sides of the bargain. Buyers may not be able to keep up the payments, house prices may go down, and their circumstances may change. At worst they lose their home.

For the lender, the worst-case scenario is having to repossess the property, and sell at a loss. But these risks are small when set against the plusses for both lenders and borrowers, and indeed for society as a whole. That is why the initiative deserves a welcome, and Nationwide will doubtless be followed by the other high street lenders in the coming weeks.

People want to own their own home. We know this from the British Social Attitudes Survey and from other international studies. Polling conducted in 2021 by YouGov showed that........

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