First-time buyers need £50,000 salary

First-time buyers need to earn on average £50,000 a year to get on the property ladder, new research suggests.

The average salary in the UK, currently £22,000, is less than half the average salary needed to get on the property ladder.

In 51 out of 65 cities, the average salary is below the minimum required to buy a flat, according to comparison site GoCompare.com.

The most affordable place to buy in the UK is Blackburn, where a salary of £14,000 a year could be enough to buy a flat.

That makes it almost 10 times cheaper than London.

After Blackburn, the cheapest places to buy property are Hull, Blackpool, Grimsby and Stoke-on-Trent, where a salary of just £15,000 could be enough to purchase a flat.

A minimum household income of £275,000 is needed to buy a detached house in London, where the average price is at £869,415

Brighton, Edinburgh, Bristol and Oxford are also costly. Minimum salaries to get on the property ladder in these cities are £60,000, £60,000, £58,000 and £54,000 respectively.

Ben Wilson, home insurance expert at Gocompare.com, says: “Although owning a home may be achievable in places like Blackburn and Sunderland, in other parts of the country the rapid rise in property value and a growing urban population is pricing many of the British public out of home ownership.

“London’s high prices are well documented, but it’s in other parts of the south of England that the gap between average salary and average house price is at its most alarming, with places like Brighton requiring a minimum household income of £180,000 to afford a detached house.”