More key workers able to become first-time buyers

26-May-2009

Key public sector workers are now able to afford to purchase a first home in more than a fifth of the UK's towns.

At the height of the property boom in 2007 a report by Halifax concluded that workers in the emergency services, teachers and nurses could only afford to get on to the property ladder in three per cent of towns.

The bank's new research, which involved analysing the price of first-time buyer properties and public sector salaries, found that they can now purchase a home of their own in 21 per cent of towns.

However, the trend is far from uniform across the country.

Home ownership is now a realistic aspiration for key workers in Scotland, Wales, the north-west of England, and Yorkshire and the Humber, but it is a different story in the south of England.

Martin Ellis, Halifax's housing economist, explained: "All of the affordable towns are outside southern England, which means that key public sector workers are still heavily constrained in the housing market in the south."

The lack of affordable homes for key workers in the region comes despite Land Registry figures showing that house prices in London fell by 15.4 per cent in the past year and by 17.6 per cent in the south-east.

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