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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Business
Ruby Flanagan

Most and least expensive places to buy a home in UK revealed - see full list

The northern city of Bradford in Yorkshire has been crowned "Britain's cheapest city" for first-time buyers wanting to get on the property ladder.

Bradford topped the list on Rightmove's analysis which looked at the prices of two bedroom homes in major urban locations across Britain.

The research made several assumptions, including that first-time buyers had a 10% deposit and would be paying back their mortgage over 25 years.

The average asking price for a typical first-time-buyer-type property in Bradford sat at £104,643, which could potentially lead to monthly mortgage payments of around £521.

Carlise in Cumbria took second place as the second cheapest city with an average asking price only slightly higher than Bradford at £104,789 - the average mortgage costs sat at £522 a month.

Excluding London, St Albans in Hertfordshire was named as the priciest city to get on the property ladder, with average monthly mortgage payments at around £1,958.

St Albans is a popular commuter city with regular trains to the capital.

Within London, the average monthly mortgage payment for a first-time buyer was put at £2,533.

Rightmove said its findings suggest paying a monthly first-time buyer mortgage with a 10% deposit is cheaper than renting in around half of the cities it looked.

This rises to two-thirds of cities if buyers are able to raise a bigger deposit, at 15% of the purchase price.

Rightmove's findings also indicated that first-time buyers in Glasgow could potentially make the biggest monthly savings in cash terms by getting on the ladder, with the average monthly mortgage payment for a first home being £215 per month cheaper than the average rent.

At the other end of the spectrum, first-time buyers in St Albans could potentially end up paying £525 more per month when on the property ladder than they were when they were renting, the research indicated.

According to Rightmove, a typical first-time buyer home has a record price tag of £226,399 in the UK.

Tim Bannister property expert at Rightmove said: "For those who are able to save up the deposit, it's still cheaper to pay off a mortgage as a first-time buyer in many areas than pay the equivalent in monthly rent, despite prices reaching a new record at a national level and mortgage rates rising.

"It highlights how frenetic the rental market has been for a long time now, with many areas continuing to see record rents and fierce competition between tenants for the properties available.

"It helps to explain why we're seeing such determination from first-time buyers to continue to get onto the ladder despite the economic headwinds that they face, and why we're seeing buyers increasingly return to cities while a bigger proportion of renters are looking to move away."

List of average asking price for first time buyers

Top five cheapest places

  • Bradford - Asking price: £104,643 - Mortgage: £521- Rent: £623 (-£102)
  • Carlisle - Asking price: £104,784 - Mortgage: £522, - Rent: £556 (-£34)
  • Aberdeen - Asking price: £106,088 - Mortgage: £528 - Rent: £718 (-£190)
  • Hull - Asking price: £106,939 - Mortgage: £532 - Rent:£595 (-£63)
  • Dundee - Asking price: £111,415 - Mortgage: £555 - Rent: £731 (-£176)

Top five expensive places

  • London - Asking price: £508,879, Mortgage: £2,533, - Rent: £2,054 (+£479)
  • St Albans - Asking price: £393,485, Mortgage: £1,958,- Rent: £1,433 (+£525)
  • Bath - Asking price: £354,636, Mortgage: £1,765, - Rent: £1,342, (+£423)
  • Cambridge - Asking price: £354,181, Mortgage: £1,763, - Rent: £1,522, (+£241)
  • Oxford - Asking price: £351,943, Mortgage: £1,752 - Rent: £1,422, (+£330)

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