Salary of £85,000 needed to afford average home

6:00am Friday 19th October 2007

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THE annual income needed to buy an average-price property in the Winchester area is now almost £85,000 and the waiting list for affordable housing in Eastleigh borough has more than tripled in five years.

These statistics are included in a report from the National Housing Federation published today (October 19), which says public support is urgently needed to alleviate the south-east's housing crisis.

The report, South East Home Truths: The real cost of housing 2007 - 2012, says the cause of the worsening situation is lack of affordable homes.

It says one in every 18 families in the region is now on a waiting list for social housing. In over 20 per cent of areas, waiting lists have doubled in five years, and in some places the lists have tripled.

Eastleigh is picked out as a particularly dramatic example of the crisis, with the waiting list there up 239 per cent, compared to the south-east figure of around 50 per cent.

The waiting list is reckoned to have lengthened by 30 per cent in the Winchester area and 100 per cent in Test Valley.

The report includes Oxford Economics house price forecasts which predict drastically worsening affordability over the next five years.

In that time, prices across the region are expected to go up by a further 51per cent.

Lower house price inflation during 2008 is expected to bring house prices back in line with what is sustainable economically, and that is said to make a housing crash unlikely. But by 2012 the average home in the south-east is forecast to be nearly £400,000.

Figures in the report suggest that the income needed to buy an average-price property in Winchester is now £84,618. The figure assumes a 95 per cent mortgage at 3 times salary for a home costing £311,750.

The required salary in Eastleigh has risen to £58,860 and in Test Valley it has reached £70,581.

Derek Cash, the NHF's head of south region, said: "We are simply not building enough homes to meet demand. The number of households currently on housing waiting lists represents about 24 years of social home building at the present levels."

Mr Cash said he was heartened by the Government's Green Paper and promise of additional funding for affordable housing. "But local and regional political support for house building campaigns is also required in order to deliver the homes the south-east so desperately needs."

He wants residents to resist the temptation to oppose housing schemes near them: "Local communities should support planning applications, which will offer a lifeline to youngsters who want to live in their own area by providing rented and shared ownership housing."

Politicians of all parties saw the issue as a major priority, Mr Cash added, and it was now time for them all to "turn their words into real action."

*What do you think of these figures? Can you afford a mortgage? How long have you been waiting for a house? Add your comments below.