Priced out: Average earners face 100 year wait to save mortgage deposit

In Yorkshire, Leeds residents are looking at the longest period to save up - 27.5 years.

The research, by online estate agents HouseSimple.com compared average earnings in 20 English cities with the cost of an average priced home.

Unsurprisingly, property hotspots in the south saw people facing the longest periods saving, despite average earnings being higher than some other parts of the country.

An average worker in Brighton, taking home £23,488, would need to save for 104.2 years to have a large enough deposit for an average priced property in the area - £350,222.

The situation is slightly better in Bristol, where an average wage earner on £27,394, would have to save for 55.1 years to afford an average priced property (£274,280).

At the other end of the scale, people in Hull would only need to save for 6.1 years to have enough for a deposit, as the average salary is £24,248, and average house prices are close to a third of the price of average property prices in Brighton, at £123,864.

Similarly, in Bradford, with average house prices of just £124,051, and average salaries of £24,743, an average wage earner could have a large enough deposit after seven years, to afford an average priced property in the city.

Elsewhere in Yorkshire, Leeds residents earning an average of £25,943 would have to save for 27.5 years to pay for a deposit on a house of £188,171; Wakefield residents are also in it for the long haul, waiting 26.1 years to save for a deposit on a £177,024 house from their average earnings of £24,908; and in Sheffield it would take the average earner on £25,334 a total of 24.9 years to save for a deposit on a house of £177,151.

The figures have been calculated on the basis that savers could put aside 10 per cent of their salary every year for a house deposit, and that the maximum mortgage loan they could secure would be four-and-a-half times their gross annual salary.

Alex Gosling, CEO of HouseSimple.com said: “Affordability remains a major problem across the UK. Everyone knows that London is unaffordable for all but the rich or fortunate, but these figures highlight the plight of the average person looking to buy an average priced property in their local town or city.

“The average wage earner is being priced out of their local property market, and without a serious influx of new properties coming onto the market, that’s likely to continue to remain the case.”