With the first quarter of 2013 nearly behind us Nick Churton of Mayfair International Realty takes a look at what may lie ahead for the real estate market for the rest of this year.

It must be hard for all those long-term home owners, who have benefited so much from the real estate market's rich bounty over the years, to come to terms with the fact that for some time to come homes won't be the cash cows they have been in the past.

First time buyers in their twenties and early thirties are perhaps more fortunate. The last time real estate was surging in value most of this group weren't taking much notice. For many of them what went on during the hours of darkness was more interesting than what went on in the cold light of day.

So, not for them an early step onto the real estate ladder - as the generation before them had been so keen to do. This older group had had the benefit of received wisdom from the previous two generations. Property was a sure fire winner they were told. Nothing could ever go wrong they were assured. Except it could and it did. So much so that property ownership for young adults of the “noughties” became something of a pipe dream.

But now it is this very generation who are leading a small recovery in the real estate market. They have proved home ownership is possible before they are forty, or even thirty, by price adjustment, some careful saving, or by calling on benevolent parents and even grandparents - all mixed together with a little more money being available at very low interest rates

In recent years it has become apparent to all generations that property ownership through inheritance is not always a given. Inherited property is a notion last fully understood by the Victorian rich who, as life expectancy was a lot less than it is now, didn’t have to worry about the cost of elderly care and its eroding effect on legacies.

So let's hear it for the younger property generation. They are making the sorts of moves that will help to get the market going - but not for the same reasons as their parents. This new generation are concentrating on space, style, convenience and the latest home techno-gadgets. If the market begins to improve and they receive growing capital appreciation then that will be a bonus. But for them now there are more important reasons for property ownership than making money, and those are the security and enjoyment of living under their own roofs.