As the housing market picks up the north-south divide widens

It comes as the survey found the cost of a typical home in the UK was at its most unaffordable level since 2009 with buyers having to stretch their wages further to keep up with rising property prices.

A city home now costs 6.1 times gross average annual earnings, up from 5.8 times average earnings 12 months ago as the housing market recovery has spread across the country, Lloyds Bank found.

Oxford is the UK’s least affordable city, with the average house price standing at £361,469, which is nearly 11 times the local wage, followed by Winchester, Cambridge, Chichester and Brighton and Hove.

Greater London comes in sixth.

With an average price of £158,645, Stirling remains the UK’s most affordable city, with a property there costing around 3.9 times gross average annual earnings, according to Lloyds’ Affordable Cities Review.

Meanwhile Bradford comes in at 4.17 times gross average annual earnings and Hull 4.96, it found.

Andy Hulme, Lloyds Bank mortgages director, said: “House price rises in the past two years have resulted in a deterioration in home affordability in the majority of UK cities, and generally widening the north/south affordability divide as the market has been strongest in the south.

“The UK’s most successful cities economically have tended to see the strongest property price rises.”