Tuesday 20 October 2015 10:12 am

UK and London house prices: How long does it take to save a deposit for a property? 104 years for people in Brighton

Wannabe homeowners in Brighton are worse off than Londoners when it comes to jumping onto the first rung of the property ladder.

A resident in the town would need to save for more than 104 years to amass a deposit for a property in the area, based on average salaries and property prices,

The average cost of a Brighton home comes in at £350,522, while the annual salary in the area is a more modest £23,488, according to HouseSimple. Calculating the loan needed, size of deposit, and squirrelling away 10 per cent of a yearly salary for the deposit, it would take more than a century to buy a home in the town

And Londoners don't fare much better: it would take 97 years to afford a home in the capital.

The stark calculations illustrate the difficulty for first-time buyers attempting to grab a hold of the first rung on the property ladder. More and more people scrambling to buy a diminishing number properties on the market has pushed up prices, with some now so high its beyond the means of many.

The effect is not just isolated to these two popular locations either. In Bristol, Cardiff and Edinburgh it would take 55, 49 and 41 years respectively to save a deposit.

“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," said HouseSimple chief executive Alex Gosling.

“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.”

The northern city of Hull is the best place to buy, where it would take just six years to save for a deposit, the shortest time of any of the 20 major towns and cities in the UK.

Here's how they compare.