THE amount you’ll need to earn to buy a house in your area has been revealed.
House prices remain inflated well above average wages, making it difficult for first-time buyers to get on the ladder.
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In fact, new data from Nationwide given exclusively to The Sun reveals the average wage you’ll need to earn to buy a home is £51,967.
That’s well above the UK’s average wage, which was estimated as £37,430 in April last year.
The average price of a home stands at £259,834.
This data is based on information from every local authority across England, Scotland and Wales.
It is calculated based on someone with a deposit of 10% looking to buy a home worth 4.5 times their annual income.
The data also breaks down the amount you would need to earn to buy a home in each area.
Use our map to check what you would need to earn based on your local authority
The area where you need the lowest average earnings is Inverclyde.
There you need a wage of £19,250 to buy a house, which costs an average of £96,249.
East Ayrshire has the next lowest earnings needed at £21,133 to get a house at an average price of £105,663.
Nearby in North Ayrshire, you would need to be earning £21,667 for a house worth an average of £108,337.
The cheapest area in England is Burnley in Lancashire.
There you would need to earn £21,908 to get a house worth £109,538.
Unsurprisingly, most of the areas where you need the highest earnings are in London.
The top 16 areas with the highest average earnings needed are all in the capital, in fact.
Kensington and Chelsea comes out on top, and you would need a whopping £184,744 salary to get a house there.
That’s almost double the amount of money you’d need to buy a home in Inverclyde outright.
House prices on average in the area are £923,721.
The next most expensive is the City of London, where you would need to be earning £157,066.
There, house prices average at £785,332.
Westminster is next, with an average required salary of £156,851 for a £784,254 home.
In Camden, you’d need a huge £146,780 wage to get a home worth £733,898.
The most expensive area outside of London is Elmbridge in Surrey.
There you would need an average salary of £97,778 to buy a home worth £488,890.
St Albans in Hertfordshire is also among the areas where you would need the highest wage.
You would need a £97,067 salary to get a home there with an average price of £485,335.
Where are the most and least affordable regions in the UK?
A recent study by Halifax showed the most and least affordable regions across the country.
The North East was revealed to be the most affordable region, with a house price to earnings ratio of 4.38.
Over the last year, house prices in the North East rose by 2.4% compared with a 7% increase in average earnings.
The second most affordable region was Northern Ireland at 5.09 – however this has increased rapidly since last year from just 4.88.
Meanwhile, the third most affordable was Yorkshire and Humber, which had relatively the same level of affordability at 5.42.
The least affordable place to live in the UK is the South East of England.
It’s even less affordable than London, with a ratio of 8.96 – up from 8.95 last year.
London still has the highest average house price of £539,238, but it had a house price to earnings ratio of 8.22, placing it second.
How to get the best deal on your mortgage
IF you’re looking for a traditional type of mortgage, getting the best rates depends entirely on what’s available at any given time.
There are several ways to land the best deal.
Usually the larger the deposit you have the lower the rate you can get.
If you’re remortgaging and your loan-to-value ratio (LTV) has changed, you’ll get access to better rates than before.
Your LTV will go down if your outstanding mortgage is lower and/or your home’s value is higher.
A change to your credit score or a better salary could also help you access better rates.
And if you’re nearing the end of a fixed deal soon it’s worth looking for new deals now.
You can lock in current deals sometimes up to six months before your current deal ends.
Leaving a fixed deal early will usually come with an early exit fee, so you want to avoid this extra cost.
But depending on the cost and how much you could save by switching versus sticking, it could be worth paying to leave the deal – but compare the costs first.
To find the best deal use a mortgage comparison tool to see what’s available.
You can also go to a mortgage broker who can compare a much larger range of deals for you.
Some will charge an extra fee but there are plenty who give advice for free and get paid only on commission from the lender.
You’ll also need to factor in fees for the mortgage, though some have no fees at all.
You can add the fee – sometimes more than £1,000 – to the cost of the mortgage, but be aware that means you’ll pay interest on it and so will cost more in the long term.
You can use a mortgage calculator to see how much you could borrow.
Remember you’ll have to pass the lender’s strict eligibility criteria too, which will include affordability checks and looking at your credit file.
You may also need to provide documents such as utility bills, proof of benefits, your last three month’s payslips, passports and bank statements.
