Determined, university educated and fully employed younger savers with a vision of owning their home may be a fair credit risk in the modern era, analysis by some researchers at the Reserve Bank of Australia suggests. The RBA study also shows that, from a more distant viewpoint, the recent crop of mortgage customers is much riskier than before the GFC. This is broadly good news for bank and non-bank funders, though there is an "apparent preference shift away from intermediated debt," among this middle-class cohort.The core of the RBA discussion paper is understanding "how things have changed since the GFC" with the authors asking: "are people buying first homes taking on 'too much' debt? And what implications does this have for our understanding of the growing level of aggregate household debt?"RBA analysts John Simon and Tahlee Stone summarised that " we find that fewer people are making the transition from renters to owners than prior to the crisis. Those that do, however, are more financially stable than earlier cohorts. "Those who do step onto the property ladder are, on average, better placed to pay off their loans. "We attribute much of this change to the increase in housing prices and the associated hurdle that deposit requirements represent," the RBA researchers said. "While saving a deposit is a stretch, it is also a sign of financial discipline that is associated with fewer subsequent difficulties." The study provides fodder for those on either side of Australia's perennial debate around its housing bubble and the probability of a banking and economic cataclysm.The median debt to income ratio for first home buyers "was around 330 per cent in 2014, up approximately 40 per cent from the ratio of 230 per cent in 2001. FHBs are taking on more debt than in the past," the analysts said.The higher debt-to-income ratios "reflect the fact that purchase prices have risen faster than incomes … [and] … a consequence of higher purchase prices is that FHBs have had to save a much larger deposit despite maintaining a similar median loan-to-valuation ratio of around 83 per cent," they said.The median deposit size increased by around A$28,000 to almost $70,000 in the six years to 2014.As a share of disposable income, the deposit size increased from 52 to 75 per cent between the two periods.That fact, Simon and Stone said, "together with a rise in the debt-servicing ratio (from 20 per cent of income, to 26 per cent), suggests that first home buyers might be facing a higher financial burden in the post-financial crisis period."