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Monday 14 December 2015 9:48 am

The definitive guide to where you can afford to buy a home: Unless you earn £42,645 forget about living in London

By: James Nickerson

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Where in the UK can you afford a house? If you're a first-time buyer, the answer is "very few places". If you earn under £42,645 per year, you’re going to struggle to find anywhere in the capital.

Use the tool below on desktop to find out where you can afford to buy, based on the interest rate on a mortgage, the size of a deposit and the length of the mortgage. That's based on the fact that the affordability threshold is considered to be spending a third of the salary you earn on your mortgage.

The map shows where people earning different wages can afford to buy, based on a 20 per cent deposit, a 4.5 per cent interest rate, and a 25-year mortgage. Check back on desktop for the full interactive experience.

The darker the shade of red, the further out of your price bracket the homes in that areas are, while the darker the shade of green, the more in your price bracket the homes in that area are.

[custom id="115"]

Want more detail on the capital? Enter your salary below.

The map below shows more detail on the capital

[custom id="114"]

Read more: The hardest places to get on the housing ladder

In the UK there are 83 local authorities where someone could buy a house on the median salary of £22,487, none of which are in London.

Some 90 per cent of people cannot afford to buy a house at all in London, with the top 10 per cent only able to buy in Barking and Dagenham. Two adults on the UK median wage could however afford a house in Barking and Dagenham, with a 20 per cent deposit.

In Canada, where the median wage is £50,575, people can afford to purchase a house in 302 of the 380 local authorities, but just three in London: Barking and Dagenham, Bexley and Havering.

Even the top 20 per cent of earners in the City would only be able to buy a house in eight of the 33 boroughs.

Read more: Can the government really build 400,000 more homes?

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