Winchester is the least expensive city in the UK to buy a home | housing market

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Winchester has become the least expensive city in the UK to buy a home, with property prices averaging 14 times people’s earnings.

The city of Hampshire has overtaken Oxford, according to an analysis by Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage lender. Buying a home in Winchester will return buyers an average of £630,432 – the highest in the country and an 8% increase in 2020, while earnings average £45,059.

Halifax said price growth in Winchester has been far outpacing the rest of the UK in terms of wages. Its analysis of 61 cities in the year to June showed that the average home cost 8.1 times median income, up from 7.5 times last year. The percentage increased for eight years.

“We can see from our research that affordability is much better in the north and there are now only two cities – Plymouth and Portsmouth – that have above-average capacity in the south,” said Russell Galley, managing director of Halifax.

The housing market has been driven by a temporary stamp duty cut, which has been in place for a year, and people’s desire to move to tree-lined sites and larger homes after lifestyle changes during the coronavirus pandemic, with many switching to working from home.

Oxford is the second least expensive city, at 12.4 times earnings, followed by Truro and Bath in the southwest, Chichester in the southeast, and Cambridge, Brighton and Hove and Greater London, where the average home cost is 11 times higher. profits.

Over the past year, the average price of a home in UK cities grew 10.3% to £287.440, while wages for people in the same locations rose just 2.1% to £35,677.

House prices in Salisbury grew 36% to £392,355, followed by Hereford, which rose 29% to £316,929, and Lancaster and Birmingham both up 19%.

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At the other end of the scale, Londonderry in Northern Ireland remains the country’s most expensive city for the third year in a row, with a profit of 4.7 times. A 13% increase in average income last year saw Carlisle join Bradford in second place (both 4.8) as the most affordable, ahead of Stirling, Aberdeen and Glasgow, all with a price-earnings ratio of 5.4.

Looking back, since 2011 the median price of a Gloucester home has doubled to £287,600, followed by London and Chichester (both at 98%), and Manchester (up 97%). The average city house price growth in the UK over the same period was 71%.

Winchester now has the highest average house prices of any British city, ahead of St Albans (£604,423) and London (£564,695). The lowest average house prices between cities are found in Londonderry (£155,917) and Hull (£166,924).

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