27 Feb, 2019/ by Homeward Legal /First Time Buyer
The most affordable areas for first-time buyers to seal the deal on their first property have been revealed.
In the Halifax First-Time Buyer Review, the district of Pendle in Lancashire topped the list of local authority districts where affordability for FTBs is best. The average property price in Pendle is £88,852, which is 2.6 times the local average gross annual earnings for the area.
All 10 of the most affordable places to buy as an FTB are in the north-west of England and west of Scotland.
The least affordable area has been identified as the London borough of Brent where an average property sells for £500,088. According to the Halifax, that's 13.3 times the gross average annual earnings for the area.
Nine of the least affordable local authority districts are in London with Oxford the only outlier from the capital. In Oxford, a FTB can expect to pay an average £400,730 for their first home, 10.9 times average annual earnings.
The top 10 most affordable areas for FTBs with average earnings ratio:
| Pendle, Cumbria | 2.6 |
| Copeland, Cumbria | 2.6 |
| East Ayrshire | 3.0 |
| Inverclyde | 3.1 |
| South Ayrshire | 3.1 |
| Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria | 3.2 |
| Hyndburn, Lancashire | 3.3 |
| West Dunbartonshire | 3.3 |
| West Lancashire | 3.3 |
| South Lanarkshire | 3.4 |