London's Homebuying Time Machine
See how buying changed.
Enter your salary, pick a borough, then drag through time.
Then
In 1997, 24 London boroughs had homes costing less than 5× local pay.
Now
In 2025, none do.
Biggest change
Kensington and Chelsea saw the biggest rise in home prices compared with local pay.
…or tap a borough on the map.
Darker = a home costs more years of local pay. The colours use the same scale every year, so a borough getting darker means buying there got harder.
See the full numbers
London boroughs, 2025
| Borough | Typical home price | Typical local pay | Home price compared with pay | Price change since 1997 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £376,000 | £39,599 | 9.5× | +623% | |
| £569,062 | £38,294 | 14.9× | +499% | |
| £430,000 | £35,187 | 12.2× | +514% | |
| £555,000 | £38,311 | 14.5× | +594% | |
| £525,000 | £43,474 | 12.1× | +521% | |
| £770,000 | £53,577 | 14.4× | +450% | |
| £762,500 | £68,663 | 11.1× | +487% | |
| £425,000 | £40,033 | 10.6× | +516% | |
| £540,000 | £39,483 | 13.7× | +521% | |
| £476,000 | £40,036 | 11.9× | +526% | |
| £458,000 | £38,128 | 12.0× | +605% | |
| £580,000 | £48,724 | 11.9× | +695% | |
| £700,000 | £50,435 | 13.9× | +430% | |
| £572,750 | £42,609 | 13.4× | +634% | |
| £550,000 | £39,192 | 14.0× | +511% | |
| £450,000 | £41,054 | 11.0× | +521% | |
| £510,000 | £41,422 | 12.3× | +558% | |
| £485,000 | £43,068 | 11.3× | +526% | |
| £625,000 | £53,185 | 11.8× | +443% | |
| £1,150,000 | £45,600 | 25.2× | +429% | |
| £538,500 | £42,346 | 12.7× | +498% | |
| £538,000 | £48,690 | 11.1× | +548% | |
| £477,000 | £42,962 | 11.1× | +669% | |
| £545,000 | £38,471 | 14.2× | +553% | |
| £450,000 | £44,347 | 10.2× | +718% | |
| £502,000 | £35,464 | 14.2× | +569% | |
| £720,000 | £41,037 | 17.6× | +454% | |
| £540,000 | £50,000 | 10.8× | +571% | |
| £455,000 | £39,874 | 11.4× | +523% | |
| £500,000 | £66,686 | 7.5× | +456% | |
| £538,010 | £37,503 | 14.3× | +797% | |
| £632,501 | £43,035 | 14.7× | +505% | |
| £865,000 | £53,923 | 16.0× | +451% |
How did we work this out?
We use official ONS and FCA housing, mortgage and earnings data. We compare what homes cost with what buyers or local residents typically earn.
“Home price compared with pay” is the typical home price divided by typical annual full-time pay, as published by the ONS. 10× means a home cost ten years of a typical local salary.
See full methodology
Methodology
How we calculate this
Every figure comes from official statistics stored exactly as published. Derived figures are calculated live from those stored values and are illustrative, population-level statistics — not an assessment of any individual's mortgage.
The data
First-time buyer figures come from the ONS release “First-time buyer mortgage sales, by local authority, UK”, which is based on the Financial Conduct Authority's Mortgage Product Sales Data (PSD001). It covers regulated mortgage sales where the buyer is recorded as a first-time buyer, 2006–2025.
Affordability history comes from the ONS “House price to earnings ratio” releases. House prices are medians for the year ending September; earnings are median gross annual pay for full-time employees from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.
Residence vs workplace earnings. Residence-based earnings describe what people living in a borough earn; workplace-based earnings describe what people working there earn. Residence-based figures start in 2002, so the Time Machine uses workplace-based earnings to show the full 1997–2025 period. You can switch to residence-based earnings from 2002.
Boundaries are ONS Local Authority District (December 2024) generalised boundaries, joined to statistics by official area code.
Things to know
Medians, not averages. A median is the middle value, so a few very expensive sales don't distort it.
Combining medians. The median property value, median income and median LTV may describe different buyers. Figures built from them, such as the Deposit Gap, show what a typical purchase looks like across the area. They are not the circumstances of one real buyer.
Income multiples. 4.5× income is a common illustration of lender limits. You can switch to 4.0× or 5.0×. Real limits depend on the lender, credit history, outgoings and other criteria.
Income figures. ONS labels the first-time buyer income field as the median income of buyers in the mortgage sale. We show it as published.
Missing values are shown as “No data”. We never estimate or fill gaps.
This research is for information only and is not personal mortgage advice.
Sources and release dates
- ONS: First-time buyer mortgage sales, by local authority, UKData to 2025Released 18 September 2026
- ONS: House price to workplace-based earnings ratio, local authorityData to 2025Released 26 March 2026
Page data last refreshed 16 October 2026.
For journalists
Using this data in a story?
You may reproduce these charts with attribution to Casa Capital. Download the underlying data or contact us if you need a bespoke cut.
Casa Capital Homebuyer Index, based on Office for National Statistics and FCA mortgage data.
The map shows London. Your mortgage is personal.
National statistics can show what buyers typically do. They can't tell you what your own circumstances could unlock.