Yahoo Finance How much do you have to earn per hour to buy a house in every UK postcode?
The postcode TS2 in Middlesbrough is the most affordable place in the UK to buy a home, while SW7 in London is the least, new research has found.
A prospective buyer would have to earn just £2.15 per hour to afford a mortgage in the Teesside town. That rises to an hourly income of £186.66 for those wishing to buy in the capital's South Kensington.
The blinds maker web-blinds.co.uk analysed the average house price in each of Britain’s 2,643 postcodes to find how much would be needed to be earned per hour to live in each area.
They calculated this by taking the average house price in each postcode and, based on a buyer with a 20 per cent deposit, worked out the mortgage repayments based on a 2.63 per cent interest rate for a 25-year term.
Four of the 10 most affordable postcodes are in the North East and three are in South Wales.
Unsurprisingly, all 10 of the most expensive postcodes to buy a property are in west and south-west London. SW7 tops the table, followed by W8, which covers Kensington, and SW3, the postcode for Chelsea and part of Knightsbridge. Buying a home in these exclusive enclaves would require an hourly income of £180.27 and £170.32 respectively.
Looking at slightly larger areas, web-blinds.co.uk also figured out the least and most expensive areas to buy property. South Wales again featured heavily among the UK's most affordable towns, accounting for seven of the top 10.
In contrast, all 10 of the least affordable places to live in the UK are within 50 miles of London. Commuter town Virginia Water crowns the list, with would-be homeowners needing to earn £84.84 an hour in order to purchase a home. Cobham in Surrey and Beaconsfields in Buckinghamshire round out the top three.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the average male worker in the UK earns £13.60 per hour before tax, and the average female worker earns £12.24. They would have to work for around 50 hours a day to live in Virginia Water – something they might find tricky to put into practice.
These results are the latest evidence of the UK’s north-south divide.
The North East is the only region in the UK where house prices have still not recovered to their pre-financial crisis peak, according to the ONS, remaining six per cent below their September 2007 level. The average house price in the North East is £130,000, 2.5 per cent higher than a year ago. Meanwhile, the average property in London costs £482,000 – more than three times the price of a home in the North East.
Overall, the average house price in the UK increased by £10,000 last year. The annual rise of 4.9 per cent outstrips the 2.6 per cent increase in wages in the last three months of 2016, leading estate agents to warn that the housing market is reaching a “crisis point”.
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