Revealed: The cheapest UK city for a first-time buyer
There is a town in the UK where the average monthly mortgage payment on the kind of property a first-time buyer would get stands at £521 per month.
Bradford in Yorkshire has been identified as Britain’s cheapest city to get on the property ladder, while London was named as the most expensive location.
The average asking price for a typical first-time-buyer-type property in Bradford is £104,643, which could potentially lead to monthly mortgage payments of around £521, Rightmove said.
Carlisle in Cumbria was identified as the second cheapest city to be a first-time buyer, with an average monthly mortgage payment of £522.
Excluding London, St Albans in Hertfordshire was named as the priciest city to get on the property ladder, with average monthly mortgage payments calculated at £1,958.
Read more: Interest rates: UK house sales collapse as mortgage costs surge
The figures also showed that it is cheaper to pay a monthly mortgage on a first-time buyer type home than rent in half of cities for those who are able to save a 10% deposit.
This increases to two-thirds of cities if first-time buyers can save up a 15% deposit, therefore reducing their monthly payments, with many parts of Great Britain seeing record rents and a significant gap between demand and availability of rental homes.
First-time buyers in Glasgow make the biggest savings in cash terms by getting on the ladder, with the average monthly mortgage payment for a first home being £215 per month cheaper the average rent, while first-time buyers in St. Albans see the biggest increase in monthly payments when purchasing a first home of £525 compared to the equivalent rent.
Rightmove’s property expert Tim Bannister said: “For those who are able to save up the deposit, it’s still cheaper to pay off a mortgage as a first-time buyer in many areas than pay the equivalent in monthly rent, despite prices reaching a new record at a national level and mortgage rates rising. It highlights how frenetic the rental market has been for a long time now, with many areas continuing to see record rents and fierce competition between tenants for the properties available.
Read more: UK mortgage costs set to jump amid further interest rate hikes
“It helps to explain why we’re seeing such determination from first-time buyers to continue to get onto the ladder despite the economic headwinds that they face, and why we’re seeing buyers increasingly return to cities while a bigger proportion of renters are looking to move away.”
Within London, the average monthly mortgage payment for a first-time buyer was put at £2,533.
Across Britain, a typical first-time buyer home has a record price tag of £226,399, Rightmove said.
The figures below show the average asking price for a first-time buyer home, the potential monthly mortgage cost, the potential monthly rent and the potential monthly cost of a mortgage versus renting:
Top five cheapest cities for first-time buyers
1. Bradford, average price £104,643, average mortgage payment £521, average monthly rent £623, the amount saved by owning versus renting each month £102
2. Carlisle, £104,784, £522, £556, £34
3. Aberdeen, £106,088, £528, £718, £190
4. Hull, £106,939, £532, £595, £63
5. Dundee, £111,415, £555, £731, £176
Top five most expensive cities for first-time buyers
1. London, £508,879, £2,533, £2,054, £479
2. St Albans, £393,485, £1,958, £1,433, £525
3. Bath, £354,636, £1,765, £1,342, £423
4. Cambridge, £354,181, £1,763, £1,522, £241
5. Oxford, £351,943, £1,752, £1,422, £330
Watch: Am I wasting my money by renting?
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