Young London buyers "may have to save 121 years" for a deposit

A remarkable survey conducted by a crowdfunding platform suggests that young Londoners on an average annual salary of £34,320 may have to save for 121 years to get enough for a deposit on an average priced flat.

Property Partner says it now costs more than £457,000 for the average London flat. 

The deposit needed to buy the property, assuming the first-time-buyer secured a mortgage of four times the average London salary, would be a whopping £320,505.

If they were saving 10 per cent of their net annual salary towards a deposit, it would take more than a century to have saved enough, without any financial help from parents.  

Putting aside 20 per cent of net income a year would take 60 years and saving 50 per cent of their salary would still mean a 24-year wait.

Researchers at the platform analysed the average price of a flat in each of London’s 33 boroughs, including the City of London.

Property Partner says it is perhaps unlikely any first time buyer would choose to buy in Kensington and Chelsea, but if they did, it would take 389 years to save the £1m deposit needed, based on the 10 per cent saving criterion. 

“Even if you were able to save half your salary after tax, it would still be 78 years before you had enough cash to put down as a deposit for an averaged priced flat of £1.16 million” it says.