ShortList is supported by you, our amazing readers. When you click through the links on our site and make a purchase we may earn a commission. Learn more

This is how much you need to save per month to buy a house in London

Enough to make your eyes water and your heart break

This is how much you need to save per month to buy a house in London
06 February 2017

You know how your rent is extortionate? Yeah, get used to that, because you’ll need to save your entire monthly income to buy a house in London. 

In a bid to ruin your week just as it starts, new statistics released from The National Housing Federation (NHF) show the average first-time buyer should be saving £2,300 each month if they want to buy a house in the capital by 2021.

The average home in London costs £563,014, but the amount a deposit will set you back has jumped to £113,000. That means if you earn the average salary of £34k, you’ll need...well, you’ve got no chance. The NHF reckons you need an annual income of £130,000 to be able to comfortably afford an average sized home. 

Unsurprisingly, the boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea are out of reach for most other than oligarchs, where the average house prices is around £2m:

 

But cheaper areas, while comparatively much more affordable, are still painful: 

Even in the borough with the lowest house prices, Barking and Dagenham, average prices are still more than 10 times the average local salary (£25,000) at £250,000. And you’re not allowed to get a mortgage for more than 4.5 times your annual income. 

Life outside of London seems suddenly appealing, given that the average house price outside of the city is five times less than that in it.