It’s no secret that there’s a housing crisis – but that doesn’t mean that houses all around the country are unaffordable.
According to new research from Which? there are properties available for sale at just over twice the value of a person’s annual salary in towns around the UK – while homebuyers in some parts of the UK would need to fork out nearly 50 times their earnings.
On average, a UK full-time worker could expect to pay around 7.8 times their annual salary buying a home in England and Wales in 2018, according to Office for National Statistics data.
According to Which? analysis, Copeland in Cumbria is the most affordable place to buy a house UK-wide, with average house prices just 2.5 times the annual salary. Average prices in Barrow-in-Furness, Pendle and Burnley all have average house prices below four times the average annual salary.
Derby (4.2) Stoke-on-Trent (4.3 times) and Liverpool (4.7 times) were also also among the most affordable places to buy.
Kensington and Chelsea in London was found to be the UK’s least affordable area with the average house price costing 44.51 times the average annual salary. Tower Hamlets was London’s most affordable area, with house prices at an average of 9.84 times locals’ salaries.
Which? also calculated the percentage people would need to fork out from their salary to pay for a mortgage, per region of the UK.
Unsurprisingly, it found London to be the priciest area – with people forking out 46.8% of their earnings, while Scotland was the best value at 18.2% followed by Northern Ireland, at 19.3%. South East England (38.8%) and South West England (34.1%) were the second and third most pricey areas.
“Even though property prices in many parts of the country may be out of reach, there are still locations where prices remain more affordable,” David Blake, Principal Mortgage Adviser at Which? Mortgage Advisers said.
“Make sure you speak to an independent mortgage adviser who will be able to tell you how much you should be able to borrow. This will help you work out what compromises you might need to make.”