Taylor Scott International News
First time buyers in the UK need to earn on average of £50,000 a year to get on the property ladder, new research reveals. However, in 51 out of 65 cities, the average salary is below the minimum required to buy a flat, according to the study from comparison website GoCompare. The most affordable place to buy in the UK is Blackburn where a salary of £14,000 a year could be enough to buy a flat but a minimum household income of £140,000 a year is needed to buy a flat in London. In the capital a minimum of £275,000 is needed to buy a detached house where the average price is at £869,415 yet the median average salary in the capital is just £30,338. So Blackburn is almost 10 times cheaper than London. The median average salary in the Lancashire town is £18,444, making it one of the few places in the UK that are affordable. After Blackburn, the cheapest places to buy property are Hull, Blackpool, Grimsby and Stoke-on-Trent where a salary of just £15,000 could be enough to purchase a flat. Outside of London it is Brighton, Edinburgh, Bristol and Oxford which are the most costly. Minimum salaries to get on the property ladder in these cities are £60,000, £60,000, £58,000 and £54,000 respectively. ‘Although owning a home may be achievable in places like Blackburn and Sunderland, in other parts of the country the rapid rise in property value and a growing urban population is pricing many of the British public out of home ownership,’ said Ben Wilson, home insurance expert at GoCompare. ‘London’s high prices are well documented, but it’s in other parts of the south of England that the gap between average salary and average house price is at its most alarming, with places like Brighton requiring a minimum household income of £180,000 to afford a detached house,’ he added. Taylor Scott International
Taylor Scott International, Taylor Scott
