A research conducted by Zoopla reveals which are the most affordable areas for those who want to buy a house on their own. It found out that the cheapest place is Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, in which buyers need to sacrifice only 10.84% of their monthly wage in mortgage payments.
The least affordable area for single buyers is Cambridge, as London was excluded from the research, which takes up over a third, 36.14%, of a monthly wage to pay mortgage.
The study analysed the prices for one bed flats across England and Wales, assuming that buyers would have a 15% to put down and would be paying off their mortgage over 25 years. To make the calculations the local earnings figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) were used.
The second and third places in the most affordable areas top were occupied by North Tyneside and Bradford, with Blackpool, Kirklees, and the East Riding of Yorkshire also present in the top 10. Northern areas dominated the most affordable list, while the southern areas such as Brighton, Bath, and Windsor appeared on the least affordable top 10 rundown.
Owning a home in London would cost a single buyer an average of 57.35% of their monthly wage, which is more than a half. For areas like Kensington and Chelsea, a single buyer would have to face a mortgage gobbling up to 82.44%, while in Westminster the single buyer would have to set aside 83.12% of the monthly wage to pay the mortgage for the new home.
“Buying a property is a notoriously expensive process, and those looking to purchase a home on their own will likely feel the pressure all the more,” said Lawrence Hall, a spokesman for Zoopla. He also said that the findings for London highlight “just how eye-wateringly expensive the London property market is for single buyers, especially in central London”.
