Rising house prices and higher interest rates have been forcing first-time buyers out of the property market.
In March, their numbers were 8% lower than a year ago at 33,100, said the Council of Mortgage lenders (CML).
And they typically had to borrow 3.31 times their income - a record level previously only touched in December.
The CML said the proportion of first timers' incomes now being swallowed up by interest payments was at its highest level for 15 years.
"The increasing costs of home-ownership are clearly deterring many potential first-time buyers from getting on to the property ladder," said the CML's director general Michael Coogan.
The situation is likely to get worse for would-be homeowners in the immediate future.
It is widely expected that the Bank of England will raise interest rates again this week in an attempt to suppress the inflation rate, which now stands at 3.1% as measured by the Consumer Prices Index and 4.8% according to the Retail Prices Index.
In the past year, house prices across the UK have risen by about 10%, helping to prompt the Bank of England to push up its basic lending rate three times, to 5.25%.
This has had the inevitable effect of making it more expensive for new entrants to the property market.
A year ago, their average borrowing multiple stood at 3.15 times income.
And over that time, the proportion of first timers' incomes that goes on interest payments alone has risen from 16% to 18.3% - the highest proportion since the spring of 1992.