Who affordable housing in the UK

Of all the cities in the UK, about 38% are currently available for purchase of housing, when compared with the data of 2008 when only 4% of the cities corresponded to the sign of “availability” – these figures can not but rejoice.

However, the level of accessibility of the UK property still remains below the 2003 level when the average housing to be considered affordable in 43% of cities are studies of the financial group Halifax. Index Halifax

It should be noted that most affordable housing is in Scotland and Wales.

But let’s see what really means the term “affordable housing”?

The term “affordable housing” in the UK is the ability of key public sector workers to buy their own homes and based on the price of the average home to average income (mean annual income of public sector workers in the UK). In accordance with this formula, housing is considered affordable if this ratio is equal to 4.

Was explored for all key public sectors and the estimated income professions such as firefighters, nurses, teachers, paramedics, police officers and concluded that over the past 5 years there have been great changes for the better in the accessibility of residential property in the UK. Improve this figure reached mainly due to the significant reduction in the price of housing in the Northern areas of the UK.

For nurses the amount available for the purchase of real estate of cities increased over 5 years from 7% to 35 % for teachers with 11% to 40%, for firefighters, the increase was from 1% to 31%, but in greater degree, the situation has improved police from 18% to 49% and paramedics from 18% to 50%.

Overall, last year available are 20 cities, 11 cities and were not expensive. Most are available for purchase cities were in Scotland. At the other extreme is the Central-Western region where five cities is not available for key public sector workers.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Currently in four regions recorded the ratio of the average cost of housing to average earnings of key workers in the public sector is less than 4, while in 2008, these regions do not have any.

The lowest rate was in the North of 3.64 in Wales – a 3.85 in the North-West of 3.87 , Yorkshire and the Humber – 3,93. Well, London with accessibility rate of 7.64 and South-East of the UK with a rate of 6.72 are respectively the most inaccessible areas to purchase housing key government employees.

Four of the most accessible cities located in Scotland. The most affordable city in Scotland was the town of Wishaw in North Lancashire, where the accessibility rate is 2.6 , followed by the town of Cumnock and Irvine with indicators of the availability of 2.64 and 2.65, respectively, followed by Clydebank with an index of 2.71

Port Talbot in South Wales was the most affordable city in the UK with the increased availability of 2.58. London, where housing prices are significantly higher than in all other UK cities, showed the lowest level of housing affordability. The least affordable areas of London is recognized as Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Camden, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea.

Two factors – the combination of the decline in housing values and income growth eventually led to the fact that the level of housing affordability since 2008 has increased significantly. However, housing still remains out of reach about more than half of the studied cities.

® Alice Morgan. 13.05.2013