Most Affordable Cities In The UK

With the average house price now seven times average local earnings in urban areas across the UK, it has become more difficult than ever to get onto the property ladder.
A recent report, however, aims to make the house-hunting a little easier by revealing where the most affordable cities are located.

As expected, all 20 of the most affordable cities were outside of Southern England which goes to show that the further from London you are, the better off financially.

Stirling in Scotland came out on top for the fifth year in a row with Derry in Northern Ireland following closely in second place. But don’t panic if you aren’t ready to pack up all of your belongings and move to the other side of the country, if you want something a little closer to home i.e. in the UK, then Bradford was rated the most affordable city in England.

The results are based on both the average property price in that area and the average local earnings. Considering that you can only borrow up to 4.5 times your salary when applying for a mortgage, the smaller the different in average property price and average earnings, the less you have to save towards your deposit.

The least affordable city, for example, was Oxford where house prices are, on average, 11.5 times more than earnings making it difficult to save for a house in that area.

Understandably, the draws of living in large and busy cities like Oxford, London and Brighton make it hard to be persuaded to look elsewhere for a property but with no signs of house prices steadying or decreasing any time soon, the competition is going to get steeper and being pushed out of the area may not look like such a bad thing.