LONDON CALLINGIf there was one ray of hope that beamed through the downturn, it was that first-time buyers would finally be able to own their own homes, but it was not to be, writes Angela Pertusini

THERE WAS NO shortage of Panglossian optimists who, when the downturn first became apparent, applauded the opportunities that would open up for PFTBs (Poor First Time Buyers - the adjective is now mandatory). Their day, it seemed, had come and they would fill the gap left by the fleeing hordes of rental investors. It was payback time for the PFTBs and, generally, people wished them well, not least those who hoped their reappearance would shore up their own house prices.

But the fates of property ownership had different plans and the sort of high loan-to-value mortgages that would enable those without a healthy amount of property equity to buy were withdrawn after last autumn's Northern Rock banking crisis and, last week, research by Professor Steve Wilcox of York University showed that, despite falling prices, PFTBs face greater unaffordability than ever before.

The cost of servicing a mortgage has, Professor Wilcox concluded, risen by 12 per cent in the past 12 months, meaning that the average PFTB would use 34.5 per cent of his salary servicing it (if he could find a lender willing to deal with him in the first place).

And the latest banking blip will not make life any easier for PFTBs, investors or anyone else in need of a mortgage. Last week the UK high street giant Bradford Bingley was forced to sell a 23 per cent stake in order to avoid a potential funding shortfall.

Bradford Bingley, through its subsidiary Mortgage Express, is said to be responsible for about a quarter of Britain's buy-to-let mortgages and, it claims, it has started to see arrears in this previously solid sector.

And this is where it starts to get very ticklish: Britain has never experienced a housing downturn before when so much of the market is owned by investors with no interest in it except profit.

Now that some of those investors are feeling the pinch - unable to afford new mortgages once their favourable deals come to an end or who are perhaps unable to find a mortgage at all (some smaller lenders have withdrawn from buy-to-let altogether), who will pick up the slack and buy this very available stock of homes?

PFTBs can't, traditional investors are unable to keep remortgaging their existing properties in order to buy more and bottom feeders will be waiting for the market to fall a great deal more before pouncing. With activity down more than 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 compared with last year (and that, you will remember, was a period of low availability, hence the steep price rises), according to the Land Registry, it looks like they won't be kicking their heels for long.

• The one set of people who do not struggle to find mortgages is, surprisingly, MPs.

Despite having relatively low incomes, lenders look favourably upon the wealth of expenses that right honourable members can snaffle, ahem, claim in order to big up the loans they are prepared to make to them.

And it's not just the loucher backbenchers that have been making fast and loose with their expenses. After a three-year campaign, documents relating to Tony Blair's expense claims were reluctantly made public and, it seems, for years, taxpayers have been forking out on interest for a £90,000 mortgage on his constituency home. Which is strange since, according to his wife's autobiography, the house and its renovations only cost £60,000 maximum. The Blairs have been pretty useless at profiting from property, as we reported recently.

• Shock, horror - according to a spokesperson from Haart, the national estate agency chain, one in 10 property transactions now involves gazundering.

You have to ask yourself what is wrong with the British that, given current conditions, so few are prepared to do this. Get down the souk and start haggling.