The average first-time buyer in Scotland needs to save £21,000 for a deposit with the average first starter home costing a little over £133,000, according to new research.

The typical cost of a first home north of the Border now stands at £133,178 with house hunters saving 16 per cent of the cost, or £21,424, towards the purchase, the Halifax bank has found.

Buyers are also taking out mortgages for 10 years longer than in the past in order to ensure they can keep up repayments, with interest rates due to rise later this year or early in 2017.

Scotland's first time buyers figures compares with UK average of £30,000 for a first time deposit, the research found.

The study, based on Halifax's own lending figures and official statistics, found first-time buyers slipped back last year for the first time in four years.

With interest rates due to rise later this year or early in 2017, the research found an increase in home owners borrowing from lenders for more than 35 years in order to get on the property ladder.

It means they will have to pay less per month in repayments as people are increasingly having to juggle their finances against the backdrop of rising household bills or no wage rises.

Craig McKinlay, mortgages director at Halifax, said: "Although the average price of the typical first-time buyer home has grown by 10 per cent in the past year, the number of buyers taking that first step onto the housing ladder has been supported by favourable economic conditions; namely, record low mortgage rates, rising employment and real pay growth."

Halifax estimated that around 310,000 people took their first step on the property ladder with a mortgage last year in the UK, edging down by 0.5 per cent from the 311,700 people who did so in 2014.

It marks the first annual decline in first-time buyers recorded across the UK since 2011, Halifax's report said.

The decline is partly due to the lack of supply of homes for buyers to choose from, the report suggested.

And with supply shortages continuing to put an upward pressure on house prices, the average deposit a first-time buyer needed to pay in 2015 was 13 per cent or £3,833 higher than in 2014, Halifax said.

In 2014, the typical deposit paid by a first-time buyer was £29,094, but in 2015 the average first-time deposit was £32,927.

The average price paid for a home by a first-time buyer increased by 10per cent in 2015 to reach £190,180, Halifax said. The average first-time buyer put down a 17 per cent deposit.

The typical price paid for a starter home in London was £367,990, while in Northern Ireland it was £108,542.

In London, the average first-time buyer deposit put down last year was £91,409 - which was more than five times as big as the average first-time buyer deposit in Northern Ireland, at £16,578.

First-time buyers in London typically put down a deposit of around 25per cent, while those in Northern Ireland, who typically needed to borrow a much smaller mortgage, needed a 15per cent deposit on average.

In London, the average first-time buyer now needs to find around three times this amount to get on the property ladder - at more than £90,000.

In 2007, 16per cent of first-time buyers took on a 35-year mortgage, but in 2015 this had grown to one in four (26per cent) buyers in this sector.

Despite the slight drop-off in the number of first-time buyers last year, the number has grown by nearly two-thirds (60per cent) compared with 2011, when 193,700 people took their first step on the property ladder.

Halifax used a range of sources to make its findings, including its own data and figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.