The average UK house price has rocketed to £278,123, according to mortgage lender Halifax - 8.8 times the typical UK salary.
House prices rose by 10.8 per cent in the year to February 2022, according to the latest Halifax house price index.
That's the fastest rate of growth since June 2007, and means house prices are at an all-time high.
The average UK salary is £31,285, meaning the typical house price is 8.8 times more than this.
That is a problem because most mortgage lenders will only lend from 3 to 5 times the average salary, due to rules brought in by the Bank of England in 2014.
Most lenders top out at 4.5x your salary, though they are allowed to go above this level for 15 per cent of the first-time buyers they deal with.
But the tough salary cap combined with soaraway house prices means it is almost impossible for most individuals to buy the average house, and still hard for couples.
The main reason for rising house prices is that there are not enough properties for sale, Halifax said.
This restricted demand is pushing up prices for homes that do go on the market.
Halifax managing director Russell Galley said: "Lack of supply continues to underpin rising house prices, with recent industry surveys showing a dearth of new properties being listed, now a long-term trend.
"Over the past year, the average price of detached properties (£43,251, +11 per cent) have risen at a rate more than four times that of flats (£10,462, +7 per cent) in cash terms."
More Brits will be able to buy houses under plans from the Bank of England to scrap tough rules barring those on lower incomes from getting on the property ladder.
However, the Bank plans to keep the above rule that most borrowers cannot get mortgages for more than 4.5x their annual income.
The rule that could be relaxed is that anyone applying for a residential mortgage has to be able to afford a certain level of repayments if rates rise.
Borrowers have to be able to afford mortgage rates of three per cent plus their lender's 'standard variable rate' (SVR) - normally in the region of 4-6 per cent.
So for example, anyone going for a mortgage at Halifax, one of the biggest lender, has to be able to afford mortgage repayments of 6.99 per cent a month - 3 per cent plus the lender's SVR of 3.99 per cent.
The Bank of England says that around 6 per cent of people, 30,000 every year, have been forced to take out smaller homeloans due to this strict rule.
A further 6 per cent of Brits have been unable to get mortgages at all.
The rule was brought in to protect buyers from losing their homes and getting into debt if mortgage rates go up, but since 2014 the opposite has happened and homeloan rates have been pretty low.
The upshot is that borrowers are being asked to prove they could afford mortgage rates of 6-9 per cent when their actual mortgage could be as low as 1-2 per cent.
The Bank is now consulting on removing this rule completely.
There are fears that this could increase house prices.
But Nick Mendes, mortgage technical manager at broker John Charcol, said if this happened at all it would be short lived.
He said: "Will it make an impact to borrowing, yes, because you will be able to borrow slightly more. But longer term everyone will be in the same position."
