- Official figures show it would take the average Brit between seven and 29 years to be able to put down a 10% deposit on a house in their city
- Londoners need to save for the longest amount of time to buy a home, while people in Edinburgh should be able to get on the property ladder more quickly
- Piggyback Property offers an alternative way to benefit from the property market, even for those who cannot afford to buy outright
January 2017 – Owning a home in the UK appears to be becoming more of a pipe-dream than ever before, as official figures collected by Piggyback Property show that it would take the best part of a decade to save enough money for a 10% deposit on a home.
For Londoners, however, it could be as long as 29 years. According to the UK House Price Index from the Land Registry[1], the average London house costs £590,076, meaning would-be home buyers would need to raise just over £59,000 for a 10% deposit. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data[2] shows the average salary in the city is £40,595. If Londoners were to put aside a respectable 5% of their gross salary, it would take 29 years to raise the sum needed.
The figures show that the time required to save for a deposit varies significantly around the UK. On average, those in the South (Oxford: 25 years; Bristol: 19 years) face a longer period of saving than the North (Liverpool: 10; Leeds: 13) and Scotland (Glasgow: nine years).
Those able to save more of their salary can significantly reduce this time, but even in cities with lower house prices and salaries, such as Liverpool and Glasgow, it would still require two years of heavy saving to be able to put aside enough for a deposit. Saving this much would likely require significant sacrifices, and may well be unsustainable.
What’s more, anyone earning less than the average salary in each city can expect a much longer period of saving and sacrifices in order to raise enough money for a down payment on a house.
As getting on the property ladder becomes increasingly challenging for people in the UK, Piggyback Property presents a viable alternative. By offering fractional ownership of buy-to-let properties through crowdfunding, everyday investors can benefit from the lucrative property market with an investment of just £1,000. As such, those currently unable to afford to buy their own home are able to invest in property and see their money grow at a better rate than can be expected from typical savings accounts.
Pippa Watmough, founder of Piggyback Property, says “These figures show the very real challenge facing those who want to get on the property ladder in the UK. With house prices rising in many cities, and increasing difficulty in growing your savings, it can be easy for people to feel that owning a home is more of a dream than a potential reality. With Piggyback, we want to democratise property investing and help everyday people benefit from the property market in a smart, straight-forward and responsible way.”
For more information on Piggyback Property, and to join their priority list, visit: http://piggybackproperty.com/
