House prices top 10 times the average salary in city
House prices for first-time buyers are now 10 times the average wage in Bath.
Starter homes are 32 per cent less affordable than they were just six years ago, according to analysis from our website Bath Live.
Data from the Land Registry shows the average price for firsttime buyers was £297,911 in April this year.
That is £94,000 higher than it was in 2012, when it stood at £203,758. It means first-time homes are 10 times higher than the current average salary of £29,700 in Bath and North East Somerset.
In 2012, prices were 7.6 times higher than the average salary.
That means that in the space of just six years the ratio of house prices to wages in the city has gone up by nearly a third.
In Somerset as a whole house prices were 7.1 times the average salary.
It also means owning property in Bath is increasingly out-of-reach for all but the best paid, and those with significant capital.
In 2014 the Bank of England introduced new curbs on lenders to try to cut back on risky mortgages restricting banks and building societies from offering too many mortgages at more than 4.5 times the borrower’s income.
Since 2012 the ratio of wages to starter-house prices has increased by 28 per cent across England as a whole.
Nationally the average price for a home for new buyers went past £200,000 last year and now stands at £204,667.