The number of council areas with ‘easily affordable’ housing has plummeted from 72 to just one over the past 16 years, research suggests.
Copeland in the Lake District is now thought to be the last local authority district in England where the average house price is less than three times the typical annual salary.
Analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) suggests house prices stand at more than five times the local salary in 84% of England’s regions, a figure that has increased eightfold since 1997.
The TUC blamed the national trend on a ‘toxic combination’ of rising property prices and falling real wages.
While all of the top five least affordable areas of the country are in London, research suggested areas ‘across the country’ are becoming out of reach for local residents.
TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: ‘We need an ambitious programme of home-building to get house prices back under control. At the same time, the growing number of people who have no hope or desire to buy a property any time soon but are still being clobbered by soaring rents need a better deal too.
‘But housing affordability isn’t just about house prices, decent wages are just as important and there is a lot of ground to make up before we return to the kind of salaries that people were earning before the crash.’
