On the 23rd of February, the Daily Mail newspaper published the latest survey from the Halifax of house price affordability for first-time buyers.
The nationwide survey looked at both the most affordable and the least affordable of homes – revealing that the northwest of England and Scotland were most likely to be within the grasp of first-time buyers, while certain London Boroughs, of course, are the most expensive.
As a percentage of house prices to local average incomes, homes in Pendle in Lancashire, followed by Copeland in Cumbria, offer homes with an average price of just £88,852 and £110,930 respectively. The remaining top ten of the most affordable places are also in the same region or in Scotland (where the average price of a house in East Ayrshire, for example, is £94,376).
In these areas, average house prices are roughly 2 to 3 times the level of average local earnings.
At the other end of the scale, nine out of ten of the least affordable places are all in London Boroughs. Few buyers, for instance, are likely to be able to afford the £500,000 average price of a first home in Brent, or very nearly that much in Hackney, Newham or Hillingdon – the top four most expensive places in which to buy. Prices here are between 13 and 11 times the level of average local incomes.
Taking the country as a whole, first-time buyers are putting down deposits worth an average £32,800 – in London, on the other hand, the average deposit is closer to £110,000.
