London remains the UK black spot for housing affordability, even after a five-year period of improvement in which earnings caught up with rent, according to official data.
Housing costs accounted for 35 per cent of tenants’ income in the capital in the year to March 2022, the Office for National Statistics said on Monday. This made it the only region in the UK with a rent-to-income ratio above 30 per cent, the threshold at which the ONS considers an area unaffordable.
Its finding is alarming because London rental prices, already the highest in the country at an average £1,450 per month, have been rising at a record rate this year after largely stagnating for the last four years, creating new affordability pressures.