First-time buyers in the North West of England can purchase a home as little as two and a half times their annual income.
A new report from Halifax has identified the location among the least expensive locations in the UK for individuals buying their first property.
With thriving cultural cities for example Manchester and Liverpool, stunning countryside within the Lake District and also the prospect of High Speed 2 links to London, its northern border West represents an ever more attractive choice for those wanting to get on to the ladder.
Here, we take particular notice at the first-time buyer hotspots in the region.
North West hotspots for first-time buyers
Last week, Halifax released its first-time buyer review, with the findings according to data from UK Finance, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and it is own mortgage lending figures.
Halifax identified the North West as the third best area for first-time buyers in the united kingdom, following a North East and Yorkshire and also the Humber.
This conclusion was based on the amount that first-time buyers paid in 2022, taking into account average house prices and upfront deposits.
The study found that Pendle in Lancashire and Copeland in Cumbria are the top two most affordable places for first-time buyers, with homes costing around 2.6 times the typical local salary.
The interactive map above shows the most affordable places to buy a home within the North West, based on average earnings.
Barrow-in-Furness and West Lancashire within the North West were also included within the top ten spots, with house price-to-earnings ratios of 3.2 and three.3 respectively. The remaining six places counseled me taken by areas in Scotland.
Where are homes selling quickly?
The property portal Rightmove claims that Runcorn in Cheshire has got the country’s fastest-moving property market, in line with the sale duration of homes for auction on its website.
The average selling here we are at a house in Runcorn (where the average asking price is about lb133,000) happens to be 48 days, which is 3 weeks quicker compared to previous year and 29 days quicker than the national average.
Runcorn’s housing boom is believed to become driven with a new six-lane toll bridge over the Mersey that links the town with Widnes, theoretically allowing 20-minute journey times to Liverpool.
Rightmove said that it calculates selling times based on the time between a property being listed online and it being marked as under offer or sold susceptible to contract.
Most ‘liveable’ locations in the North West
Working with a former HM Treasury economist, the housing provider Your Housing Group has produced a ‘Liveability Index’ for that North West of England.
The index focuses not just on housing availability and costs (rents and mortgages) but also other amenities for example jobs, wages and the standard of local schools.
The index is grouped into four main metrics, by which each local authority area is measured: housing availability, housing affordability, local opportunities (abundance of jobs, wage levels) and desirability of area (quality of local schools, factors of local wealth).
Your Housing Group has ranked Oldham as the most difficult home in the North West due to factors for example low average earnings (lb23,803 each year) and low employment rate (67.4%).
South Lakeland in Cumbria tops the affordability list, with higher average earnings (lb26,212) and a better employment rate (86%), in addition to access to popular and high-ranking schools.
Buyers priced from Manchester city centre
Manchester, the home of two Premiership football clubs, is one of the most well-known cities in Europe, partly due to its legendary cultural and music scene.
However the city is ranked towards the bottom five by the housing association Your Housing Group, due to ‘extremely challenging affordability and also the need for new affordable housing’.
Georgina Cox, the North West representative for NAEA Propertymark, said overseas investors are snapping in the many new high-rise developments arising in Manchester city centre, putting them out of reach of first-time buyers.
Georgina said: ‘The hotspots for first-time buyers would be the outskirts of Manchester and Liverpool. The prices in Manchester city centre are ridiculous, and availability remains low.’
