Buying a home in Scotland’s largest city could be more than £200 cheaper than renting, according to new analysis.
Property website Rightmove say that first-time buyers in Glasgow could be better off than renters with the average monthly mortgage payment for a first home £215 per month cheaper than the average rent.
The firm said this was the biggest monthly savings in cash terms in the UK, when buying and renting was compared.
Rightmove said its findings suggest paying a monthly first-time buyer mortgage with a 10% deposit is cheaper than renting in around half of the cities it looked.
READ MORE: Number of first time buyers falls by 30 per cent
This rises to two-thirds of cities if buyers are able to raise a bigger deposit, at 15% of the purchase price.
At the other end of the spectrum, first-time buyers in St Albans in Hertfordshire could potentially end up paying £525 more per month when on the property ladder than they were when they were renting, the research indicated.
Rightmove’s survey also looked which cities were the cheapest to get on the Property ladder - with Bradford in Yorkshire identified the place where house-buyers get the most bang for their buck.
London was named as the most expensive location, while Aberdeen was the cheapest city in Scotland, and third cheapest in the UK.
Dundee came in at second place north of the border and fifth in the UK.
Rightmove looked at average asking prices for typical first-time buyer-type homes with a maximum of two bedrooms in 60 major urban locations across Britain to make the findings.
The research made several assumptions, including that first-time buyers had a 10% deposit and would be paying back their mortgage over 25 years.
Across Britain, a typical first-time buyer home has a record price tag of £226,399, Rightmove said.
Rightmove’s property expert Tim Bannister said: “For those who are able to save up the deposit, it’s still cheaper to pay off a mortgage as a first-time buyer in many areas than pay the equivalent in monthly rent, despite prices reaching a new record at a national level and mortgage rates rising.
READ MORE: Scotland property: Average house prices pass £200,000
“It highlights how frenetic the rental market has been for a long time now, with many areas continuing to see record rents and fierce competition between tenants for the properties available.
“It helps to explain why we’re seeing such determination from first-time buyers to continue to get onto the ladder despite the economic headwinds that they face, and why we’re seeing buyers increasingly return to cities while a bigger proportion of renters are looking to move away.”
The survey in numbers
Here are the top five cheapest cities for first-time buyers, out of the locations looked at by Rightmove. Figures show the average asking price for a first-time buyer home, the potential monthly mortgage cost, the potential monthly rent and the potential monthly cost of a mortgage versus renting:
1. Bradford, £104,643, £521, £623, minus £102
2. Carlisle, £104,784, £522, £556, minus £34
3. Aberdeen, £106,088, £528, £718, minus £190
4. Hull, £106,939, £532, £595, minus £63
5. Dundee, £111,415, £555, £731, minus £176
Here are the top five most expensive cities for first-time buyers, out of the locations looked at by Rightmove. Figures show the average asking price for a first-time buyer home, the potential monthly mortgage cost, the potential monthly rent and the potential monthly cost of a mortgage versus renting:
1. London, £508,879, £2,533, £2,054, £479
2. St Albans, £393,485, £1,958, £1,433, £525
3. Bath, £354,636, £1,765, £1,342, £423
4. Cambridge, £354,181, £1,763, £1,522, £241
5. Oxford, £351,943, £1,752, £1,422, £330
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel