Being single adds 49 years to the time needed to save a deposit to buy a home in London compared with being in a couple, according to our latest analysis.
A couple both earning the average salary in London and saving 20% of their income after taxes and rent on the average 1-bed home would have enough for a deposit of £66,401 on the average first-time buyer home after 6.6 years. But because a single average earner can only borrow half the mortgage that a couple could, the deposit needed rises to a whopping £275,000 on a £484,000 home.
We calculated the time it would take for renters to save a deposit in each region in England using the Office for National Statistics figures on the median full-time salary, mean rent on a 1-bed home and mean first-time buyer house price.
The calculation assumed the average renter would save 20% of their income left over after tax, student loan repayments and rent. The deposit needed is either the difference between the house price and 4.5 times the gross salary (maximum mortgage typically offered), or 10% of the price if the maximum mortgage is higher than the house price.
In England as a whole, the average time for a single person to save the deposit is 21 years and this varies dramatically from 3.3 years in the North East to an impossible 56 years in London.
Mortgage lenders typically won’t lend more than 4.5 times the borrower’s income, so only average single renters in the North East, North West and Yorkshire get away with saving just 10% of the price as a deposit. Even in the Midlands, average first time buyers would be looking at a deposit of £40,000-plus (23% of the price) in order to qualify for a mortgage, which would take 11 years to save. The South West and East are similar to the national figure, while a single earner in the South East would be saving for 29 years.
Being in a couple makes a huge difference – the maximum mortgage available suddenly becomes 9 times the median salary, meaning average earners everywhere but London just need to raise a 10% deposit. Assuming they are paying the same rent on a 1-bed as a single person, it would take couples 2.6 years to save the deposit nationally, 1.4 years in the North East and 2.9 years in the South East. In London the time it takes to save falls to 6.6 years.
In England the average time for a single earner to save has fallen from 22.0 years in 2024 and 31.3 years in 2022 – but it is up from 16.4 years in 2014, with house prices having risen by about 50% in that time. While rents have risen by 25% since 2022, faster than net income at 19%, house prices have been fairly flat, allowing incomes to start catching up.
The slowdown in house prices is largely due to the jump in interest rates from historic lows, which has dampened investors’ appetite in buy-to-let, which typically makes use of interest-only mortgages. As interest rates fall back, buy-to-let will become more appealing for investors, which could see prices rise faster than incomes once again, making it hard for first-time buyers to compete for homes.
Homes are the foundations of our lives, but decades of rising house prices have left home ownership off-limits to single people in most of the country – and impossible in London if you don’t have family wealth. Things are easier for couples because two salaries let you borrow much more on a mortgage, but even then you need to sacrifice a large chunk of your disposable income to raise the deposit you need.
Building more homes will slow the rise of rents and prices, reducing the time needed to save. But to really make a difference, the government should look again at the advantages investors have, such as interest-only mortgages, that have allowed them to outbid first time buyers. Giving Metro Mayors the power to limit rent increases in cities like London would also help give renters some breathing space to start saving.
Notes:
The rent figure used for each region was either the rent on a 1-bed, or, if this represented more than 40% of the salary, a figure for a room in an HMO estimated using data from the Department for Work and Pensions and the ONS. Letting agents generally won’t let someone a flat if the rent is more than 40% of their income, which puts 1-bed homes out of reach of single earners. Student loan repayments are based on Plan 2, and the couple is assumed not to be married, so not benefiting from the married couple’s allowance.
