Lloyds Bank recently published the shocking news that not London is the least affordable city in the UK, but Oxford.
In an affordability survey, the bank compared average house prices with average gross annual earnings and as a result place the capital behind Oxford and Winchester.
The price of a house in Oxford average as £364,429, which equals 10.68 times average earnings. As one of the reasons for Oxford’s high position, Lloyds named its “attractiveness to commuters working in London”.
The average figure for London came up to 10.06, although Lloyds said this “disguises considerable variations across the capital with central boroughs being significantly less affordable than the Greater London average”.
Furthermore, the research showed that London has experienced the highest house price growth, rising by 53% over the last five years. This is closely followed by Salford (48% rise) and Cambridge (46% rise).
The UK’s least affordable cities:
1. Oxford
2. Winchester
3. Greater London
4. Cambridge
5. Bath
6. Brighton and Hove
7. Truro
8. St Albans
9. Chichester
10. Exeter
When it comes to the most affordable place to live, the study named Londonderry in Northern Ireland, where on average a house costs £113,302, 3.8 times the gross average annual earnings.
Andrew Mason, Lloyds Bank mortgage products director, said: “House price rises in the past three years have risen more steeply than average wage growth, making it more expensive to buy a home in the majority of UK cities.”
“This has also widened the North–South divide, as house prices in the South have generally seen stronger growth than in the North. Winchester has recorded the biggest gains over the past decade, whilst London, not surprisingly, has seen the largest growth during the economic recovery of the last five years.”
To see the most recent developments, have a look at Halifax’s House Price Index.
