WHEN you were growing up, you probably didn’t think your family home was
particularly special. Your parents probably didn’t either. Maybe they
coveted a smarter house on a better street, but settled for what they could
comfortably afford: a three-bedroom semidetached house with a garden,
perhaps. Those young parents would never have dreamt that their children
would be so impoverished in their early thirties that just such an
“ordinary” house would be far beyond their financial means.
The difference between the present generation of first-time buyers and their
parents is that house prices have risen at a far greater rate than incomes.
In 2006 the average first-time buyer, let’s call her Jane, was 33. If Jane’s
parents bought their first house in 1973, the year before Jane was born,
they would, according to government data on average first-time buyers in
that year, have been only 29 and would have earned £2,734 a year. Their
house cost £7,908, under three times their salary, and 20 per cent less than
the average house price. Jane, on the other hand, can afford a decent
property only if she earns £40,523, well above the average annual salary of
£23,580. Her £145,970 house costs 3.6 times her salary and is worth 29 per
cent less than the average. New figures from the Halifax indicate that
first-time buyers on the average wage typically pay more than five times
their salary.
In the past decade house prices have left wage inflation trailing in the dust.
The average price paid by a first-time buyer rose by 204 per cent in the ten
years to 2005, although their wages rose only by 92 per cent (Office for
National Statistics). As houses become more expensive in relation to
earnings, a higher proportion of the price has to be paid as a deposit. In
1995 the average first-time buyer deposit was less than 10 per cent of the
purchase price; in 2005 it was 19 per cent.
This means that most young people are prevented from setting up home in the
streets and towns their parents could afford. In 1985, when I was a nipper,
my parents bought a family home in St Andrews, Fife, when the average house
price in the area was £28,223. Since then, prices have risen well beyond my
means: last week a public lavatory in the town sold for £195,000, four times
the guide price, and more than eight times the average Fifer’s £24,000
salary.
For those prepared to look farther afield, there are still bargains. Expat St
Andreans might steel themselves to look at Kirkcaldy, where another public
convenience sold recently for four times the guide price, but it still cost
only £38,000. Or there’s always Lochgelly, a former mining town off the M90
that regularly tops the lists of the cheapest places in Britain to buy
property, despite a 24 per cent rise in value in the past year. The average
house there costs £104,738.
Those who grew up in Glasgow or rural Lanarkshire or Renfrewshire, and who
wish to settle close to home, have the pick of some of Britain’s cheapest
property. Bellshill, Wishaw and Airdrie to the east of the city, and
Paisley, Greenock, Dumbarton and Clydebank to the west, near some of
Scotland’s finest scenery, all have average house prices of less than
£125,000.
Yorkshire and Humberside are also first-time buyer hotspots for those who feel
the tug of a childhood spent in York, Leeds or England’s northeast coast.
£130,000 will buy you an above-average house in Hull, Barnsley, Grimsby,
Cleethorpes or Scunthorpe. Further south, Cardiff, a revitalised city where
the average house costs £172,092, is now beyond the means of many who were
born there. However, there is no shortage of alternatives along the valleys
and coast of South Wales: Merthyr Tydfil, Aberdare, Ebbw Vale and Pontypridd
all average under £125,000, and for those with a little more liquidity,
Neath, Pontypool, Port Talbot, Cwmbran and Llanelli are all valued under the
average first-time buyer price of £145,970.
In the South East, East Anglia is your best bet: Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft,
Wisbech and Thetford all have average prices of less than £157,000.
Londoners should look to the East End: prices in Newham are lowest at
£228,713. Natives of the West Country, Britain’s most expensive area, will
find the best deals in Plymouth, where the average house costs £163,799. It
may not be all your parents could have wished for, but it’s a start.
For a step-by-step guide to gaining a foothold on the property ladder, go to: timesonline.co.uk/firsttimebuyer
ROVERSRETURN
THE World of James Herriott museum is one draw to the North Yorkshire market
town of Thirsk. Jill Miller, of the estate agent Luke Miller, says that
people often come out of the museum, which commemorates the life of the
literary vet, and drool over properties for sale in agents’ windows. But
another lure is the prices, which are lower than in Yorkshire’s so-called
Golden Triangle between Leeds, York and Harrogate, 30 minutes’ drive away.
The average price in the smartest parts of Harrogate is £300,000, according to
the property data company Hometrack. In Thirsk it is £233,900; a two-bedroom
terraced house can cost less than £100,000. No wonder that Toby Cockcroft,
of the upmarket agent Carter Jonas, claims: “Thirsk has always been the poor
relation to more fashionable market towns, but it is going to catch up,
especially with the new direct train service to London, which cuts the
journey time to two hours and 35 minutes.” The lower prices in Thirsk have
allowed Edward Hoyland, 29, who works as a project manager for IBM in
Sheffield, to return to his childhood town before the predicted upturn.
Hoyland and his wife, Laura, 25, who are expecting their first child in
September, moved in February to a £225,000 new four-bedroom house built by
George Wimpey on the old auction site overlooking Thirsk Racecourse.
“Ten miles further south this would have been £20,000 more,” he says. “I grew
up in Thirsk and spent the first 18 years trying to get out of it. Then I
went to university in Sheffield and later worked in Manchester. We thought
about buying there, then we thought: why do that when we can get something
in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside?
“There wasn’t much happening here when I was growing up, but now there is a
real spark and it’s a great place to bring up children.”
CAROLINE BRANNIGAN
BARGAINBUYS
So where can you afford to buy? The cities below are among the
cheapest in Britain right now, so start scouring for bijou flats. Doncaster:
the average property price is £138,946, with a rise of 7 per cent last year.
Try DN5 (see Focus On Doncaster, page 3). Middlesbrough: £139,468,
with prices rising by 12 per cent last year. Look in TS6. Swansea:
£148,284, with prices rising by a mere 3 per cent last year. SA6 is cheap.
Liverpool: £151,660, with a rise last year of 9 per cent. L9 and L15 look
promising. Nottingham: £152,480, with a healthy price rise of 10 per cent
last year. Areas such as NG6 and NG17 remain affordable. Manchester:
£153,345, with prices rising by 10 per cent. M9 and M24 are popular.
Portsmouth: £163,214, with last year’s price rise at 11 per cent. PO2 looks
good.
KASIA MACIEJOWSKA
