Gifts and loans from parents are helping to prop up the housing market for young, first-time buyers, according to new data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders .

Eighty per cent of first-time buyers under the age of 30 are likely to have received help from parents to make the 25 per cent downpayment now required by most lenders, the CML says. In 2006, this figure was about 40 per cent.