Unsure whether to sell or not.

Cazzr

We've been living in our 2 bed mid terrace for nearly 4 years now (1st house). We'd like to move areas before my son starts school in september, to be nearer to family.

Our plan was to move into rented for a year in the new area to;
a) allow us to move fairly quickly (no chain)
b) take the pressure off as we are planning child no 2
c) put us in a strong position to buy when the time comes (we'd want to buy something to do up).

Now, a friend was recently looking to buy his first place and despite a good credit rating and just over 10% deposit he's been turned down for a mortgage unless he can double his deposit amount (despite applying for a 10% deal??!). This happened with Abbey and Nationwide.

As our place is a typical 1st time buyer house, I am wondering whether this is still a common theme for 1st time buyers at the mo, despite thinking things were improving credit crunch wise..
It's getting me all jittery about how painful selling will be and whether we should just wait a year before selling (we will go onto SVR in June/July) so payments will decrease by 1% till base rate starts going up again.

Testing the waters is not so easy now when you have to get Hips and possibly pay estate agents in advance (was thinking of using Housenetwork) and it's making me think about waiting things out a bit longer even though we really do want to move this summer..

Are things getting easier/harder for FTBers at the moment?
Comments?