Mortgage lender Halifax has published a report that has revealed the best and worst places for first time home buyers on the basis of average house prices and average earnings.
According to the data collected by the bank, the most affordable area for first time buyers is East Dunbartonshire, in the north of Glasgow, where the cost of the average property is £97,089, which equates to 2.6 times the average yearly income for the area’s residents.
Copeland in West Cumbria was the next affordable area where the ratio of average house price to annual earnings was 2.9:1.
Scotland was also home to four of the other most affordable areas, which were North Lanarkshire, Stirling, West Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.
Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the study, all of the top ten least affordable areas for first time areas are in London, with Brent in North London topping the list of the least affordable locations, where an average first time buyer will spend 12.5 times their yearly income on the purchase of their property.
The top five also included Hackney, where the average property costs 12 times the yearly earnings, Haringey at 11.6 times, Fulham and Hammersmith at 11 times and Waltham Forest in North East London at 10.9 times.
The research from Halifax also indicated that the number of first time buyers has recently increased by 10% on the first half of last year, rising from 140,500 to 154,200.
Meanwhile, when compared with 2009, the number of successful first time buyers has doubled in amount, from a record low of 72,700 seven years ago to over 140,000 this year.
However, the current level is still below the pre-crash heights that were reached in 2006, while separate data released by the government earlier in the week showed that with a further increased timeframe, the picture looks even less positive.
