Onsite Provision Leads to Fewer Affordable Homes being Built.
The views in this article are the views of the author only, and don't necessarily reflect the views of Priced Out as a whole.
By Ed Donovan
PricedOutBritain’s campaign for housing affordability
PricedOut campaigns for housing affordability across the UK, pushing for the policy changes that will let our cities, towns and villages build the homes we need.
How old will you be when you can buy a home?Median house price
ENG+WAL/1997-2025
England and Wales, year ending September. Source: ONS.
Affordability calculator
How old will you be when you can buy a home?
Your situation
Type your postcode or area here …
2516 to 70
£49,692median for London
Full-time minimum wage to £100,000+.
£41410% of pay
Set to 10% of your pay.
Deposit
The answer
How old will you be when you can buy a home?
You will be 36
A typical home in London costs £527,000. A 10% deposit is £52,700. Saving £414 a month, that takes 10.6 years.
Someone earning London’s median wage in 1997, saving the same share of it, needed 4.0 years and a £8,350 deposit. They would have been 29.
- Aunder 4x
- B4 to 5x
- C5 to 7x
- D7 to 9x
- E9 to 12x
London, 10.6x
- F12 to 16x
- Gover 16x
Bands A and B are at or below five times earnings, the ONS affordability threshold. London is in band E.
LondonEngland and Wales
Median house price divided by median gross annual workplace-based earnings. Source: ONS, Ratio of house price to workplace-based earnings, 1997 to 2025.
We assume you save that amount every month and that house prices stay where they are. We do not add interest on savings. Prices are the median for your area, so a flat or a terrace costs less. England and Wales only. How this works.
Time for change
Affordability
End rising house prices
Prices and rents have gone far beyond what anyone should pay for somewhere to live. They need to stop rising so that wages can catch up.
Supply
Build more homes
England needs 300,000 homes a year in the places people want to live. That means reforming planning and putting real money into social housing.
Renters
Make renting better
Millions of people will rent for their whole lives. Private renting has to work for them.
Blog
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By Lauren Thomas
Unaffordable Housing
Edward Donovan read economics at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2022 with a 2:1. Since then, he has worked as an acquisitions analyst at Greycoat Real Estate, a private equity firm.
By Ed Donovan