If you’re looking to buy a house this year – this might be some welcoming news.
The Co-operative Bank has revealed the most affordable places to buy a house in the UK and three major Yorkshire cities have made it to the top six.
Both Sheffield and Leeds have average house prices lower than the national average (which is now £264,400 as of December 2023, according to Zoopla), and were thought to be the fifth and sixth best cities for first time buyers.
To find out the best cities for first time buyers, The Co-operative Bank made a list of the 30 most populated cities in the UK. Each city was then scored and ranked according to a range of metrics, including:
- Average house price
- Average conveyancing costs
- Average surveying costs
- Average stamp duty costs
- Crime safety index score
- Traffic index score
- Life satisfaction score
This found that both Sheffield and Leeds had a similar crime safety index score of around 43, placing them between Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent, but when it came to traffic, Leeds was 32 points higher than its South Yorkshire comparison.
House prices differ slightly: £222,570 is the average in Sheffield and £246,026 in Leeds, and both placed a life satisfaction score of 7.3-7.5/10.
London is unsurprisingly the most expensive city for first time buyers in the UK, with the total average spend adding up to a huge £547,560. Bristol is the second-most expensive city (£353,033), followed by Edinburgh (£346,293), Reading (£332,283) and Southend-on-Sea (£327,729).
At the other end of the scale, another Yorkshire city can be found when solely comparing house prices. Kingston upon Hull was found to be the second-most affordable spot, offering a total cost of £140,814 around £5,000 less than, Blackpool with a total average price of £135,995 (including additional costs like conveyancing).
| Rank | City | Average total cost of buying a house | Crime safety index score (lower = better) | Traffic index score (lower = better) | Life satisfaction score (out of 10) |
| 1 | Swansea | £195,687 | 35.5 | 93.6 | 7.5 |
| 2 | Edinburgh | £346,293 | 30.9 | 107.0 | 7.7 |
| 3 | Plymouth | £225,060 | 41.5 | 99.0 | 7.5 |
| 4 | Sunderland | £147,319 | 43.0 | n/a | 7.3 |
| 5 | Sheffield | £222,570 | 43.4 | 90.3 | 7.3 |
| 6 | Leeds | £246,026 | 43.2 | 122.6 | 7.5 |
| 7 | Newport | £240,065 | 37.7 | 107.6 | 7.3 |
| 7 | Blackpool | £135,995 | 59.1 | 108.9 | 7.5 |
| 9 | Stoke-on-Trent | £143,642 | 48.3 | 83.5 | 7.2 |
| 10 | Kingston upon Hull | £140,814 | 53.2 | 113.6 | 7.4 |
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Feature Image – Unsplash
