£25k or £5mill: The UK’s most and least expensive postcodes

Whether you’re buying your first home or looking to relocate, the question of affordability is always at the forefront of decision-making.

With this in mind, Money.co.uk have created a ranking of the most, and least, affordable places to buy a home in the UK using ONS data. They also provide their top tips on securing a mortgage.

The findings revealed that across England, employees paid an average of 7.8 times their annual salary, whereas in Wales it was only 5.9 times, on average.

The Most Affordable Regions: 

• The North East is the most affordable place to buy a house. On average, a property will cost just 5.01 times the area’s average annual wage
• Second is the North West, with properties costing 5.72 times the area’s average wage
• Yorkshire and the Humber ranks as third most affordable, with a property costing approximately 5.83 times their average yearly salary

The Most Affordable Postcodes: 

Next, Money.co.uk used data to find the average price paid in each LSOA (lower-layer super output area) in England and Wales to find which postcodes contain the cheapest areas to live.

They found the five cheapest postcodes to live in are all in the North East, and can reveal that the cheapest postcode is in County Durham:

The Least Affordable Regions: 

• Unsurprisingly, London is the least affordable place to buy a house, with full-time workers having to pay roughly 12.52 times the area’s average annual wage for a property
• Second is the South East, with houses costing around 9.57 times the area’s average annual wage
• The East of England ranks third least affordable, with residents paying 8.86 times their annual salary