Salary gap hits first-time buyers

Single first-time buyers are being priced out of the housing market

House and flat prices are now too expensive for single first-time buyers in all regions of the UK except Scotland, according to research.

Salary database PayFinder.com found that house prices are now more than four times average earnings for first-time buyers everywhere except Scotland.

Mortgage lenders will traditionally lend a single person 3.5 times their income to buy a property.

In London, a single first-time buyer needs 6.84 times their income, it said.

FIRST-TIME BUYER SALARY vs FIRST HOUSE PRICE London - 6.84 times average first-time buyer salary South West - 6.28 South East - 5.83 East of England - 5.48 Wales - 5.31 West Midlands - 5.14 East Midlands - 5.05 North West - 4.59 Yorkshire and Humberside - 4.53 Northern Ireland - 4.57 North - 4.44 Scotland - 3.43

The average first-time buyer property in the capital costs £194,561 but salaries for single first-time home hunters average just under £30,000.

The situation is little better in the South East, the study said, with first-time buyer properties costing 5.83 times average incomes, or the South West, where the figure stands at 6.28.

A property costs more than five times a first-time buyer's earnings in the West and East Midlands.

Areas of the UK which have traditionally been more affordable for the first-time buyer are also becoming more expensive.

A first home in Wales, for example, would now cost more than five times the average first-time buyer's salary.

Only Scotland remains within easier reach, with first homes averaging £67, 293 - or 3.43 times the average first-time buyer's earnings.

A spokesman for PayFinder.com said: "Our statistics show just how hard it is to not only get on to the property ladder, but then how far salaries must stretch to stay there."