Teaming up with friends or family is boosting buyers’ budgets by up to £100,000.

A new study by My Home Move shows – not surprisingly – that buying en masse enables movers to spend more than solo buyers.

The south east has most of these sorts of sales, with more groups of three or more buyers snapping up homes in London, Kent and Essex than anywhere else.

With prices continuing to rise, the number of ‘single’ buyers has dropped – down by 10,000 each year for the last five years, according to the research – a 4 per cent slide.

60 per cent of the UK’s 1.3 million annual residential transactions now go to couples or groups of buyers.

The conveyancing firm analysed over 100,000 home buying records over the last five years, noting an increase in the number of people buying as ‘joint tenants’ (3 per cent) and ‘tenants in common with unequal shares’ (1 per cent). Those buying as ‘tenants in common with equal shares’ has remained the same since 2011.

Doug Crawford, CEO of My Home Move said: “With the continuing rise in property prices over the past few years, it is not surprising that the number of people buying on their own has decreased.

“However what is interesting is the rise in the number of people buying as ‘tenants in common’ and in particular those with ‘unequal shares’, highlighting a growing trend in the way people are affording properties by buying as a collective.”

Doug added: “Buyers purchasing as ‘tenants in common’ are usually not married and as such have an individual interest in safeguarding the investment they put into the property by listing who owns which share.

“By choosing to buy a property in this way, it means that two or more purchasers can pool their collective resources to afford the best home possible – which according to our research is a property worth up to £100,000 more than if they were buying alone, or £30,000 more than if they were buying as joint tenants.

“As such we’ve seen groups of three and four people buying together begin to increase, with the greatest numbers in London, Kent and Essex where property is still very expensive.”

For further information on My Home Move, visit www.myhomemove.com