Aberdeen named cheapest city for single homebuyers in Great Britain | House prices

Aberdeen in Scotland is the most affordable city for single people to buy a home in Great Britain, analysis of national property data shows, with the average one- or two-bedroom home valued at just under £120,000.

Monthly mortgage payments in the city came in at £510 a month – about 16% of the area’s average monthly salary – for such a property valued at £119,350, according to research from the property website Zoopla.

Liverpool was named the most affordable city for single homebuyers in England, with average mortgage payments making up 18% of monthly salaries, or £540.

The average UK property price rose by 0.7% in January to a new record of £299,138 after dropping 0.2% in December, according to Halifax, one of the country’s biggest mortgage lenders. The jump came as many first-time buyers rushed to complete deals before a stamp duty increase, which is due to come in this spring.

There was a “modest improvement” in affordability across Great Britain over 2024, according to Nationwide building society, as wage rises outpaced house price growth and mortgage costs fell slightly. However, first-time buyers still typically pay about five times their earnings for a home.

While Aberdeen is the most affordable city, Zoopla found that Edinburgh was the priciest in Scotland, though affordability in the city has improved over the past 12 months, a result of slowing house price growth and rising salaries.

Blaenau Gwent was the most affordable local authority in Wales, with homes costing an average of £112,090, or £470 a month, while Monmouthshire was the least affordable, at £240,900 and £1,010 a month respectively.

The least affordable city in England was, unsurprisingly, London. All of its boroughs had mortgage payments of more than £1,000 a month for an average-priced one- or two-bedroom home, Zoopla found. The most affordable was Havering, in the capital’s east, where one- to two-bed homes came in at an average of £306,480. The average monthly payment there was £1,100, or 29% of average salaries.

The least affordable borough was Kensington and Chelsea, where the average property was £925,870, or 73% of average monthly earnings, according to Zoopla’s analysis.

Over the past 12 months, house prices have risen by just under 1.5% in southern England, excluding London. Bristol in the south-west, Oxford, Portsmouth in the south-east and Cambridge in the east of England are among the most improved cities for affordability.