House prices continue to rocket, with a typical UK home now costing more than seven times average earnings. Research from mortgage lender Halifax found that a typical UK home is 7.1 times average earnings.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, house prices have risen by 16.8% from £239,281, with earnings rising by 2.7% from £38,374. In the first quarter of 2022, the cost of an average home in the UK was £279,431, while annual average earnings of a full-time worker were estimated to be £39,402.
London was found to be the most expensive place to buy a home, with an average property price of £534,977 and house price to earnings ratio of 9.7. Westminster and the City of London, however, witnessed the sharpest improvement in the house price to earnings ratio since the start of the pandemic, with a drop from 16.8 in early 2020 to 14.5 in 2022. This is a sign of increasing buyer demand for larger properties in less urban locations, Halifax suggested.
