London house prices may have soared 90% over the past decade, but, surprisingly, Britain's capital isn't the most unaffordable place to buy a home as a local.
It's Oxford.
According to research by Danny Dorling, the Halford Mackinder professor of geography at the University of Oxford, the city is now the least affordable place for locals to buy a property as homes are exchanging hands at a rate of 16 times that of average wages.
From 2013 to the end of 2014, Dorling found, the average property price in Oxford stood at £426,720. This is £38,000 more than in the previous year. However, average salaries for local workers hit just £26,500.
That means that relative to incomes, house prices are actually more expensive in Oxford than they are in London.
Dorling's research found that the average London property price hit £501,520. Home prices increased by £45,620 over the year, leaving them 15.7 times as large as the average income of £31,950.
"We have seen the ripple from London affect Oxford house prices — it's like a shockwave coming out of the capital," Dorling said. "The average in London is now above £500,000 and once it doesn't look unusual to ask that much for a property there, it will happen in Oxford too. But we don't have London weightings on our wages."
Dorling's findings are part of his research he did for the latest edition of his book "All that is Solid: How the Great Housing Disaster defines our Times and What We Can Do About It."
Here are the other regions that are the least affordable places to live as a local, at a rate in which properties changed hands versus wages in 2014:
- Cambridge: 14.8 times.
- Brighton: 12.2 times.
- Reading: 10.1 times.
- Milton Keynes: 8 times.
And the most affordable:
- Liverpool: 5.8 times.
- Derby: 6.2 times.
- Nottingham: 6.8 times.
- Swansea: 6.7 times.
- Birmingham: 7.3 times.
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