New data has revealed the dramatic decline of affordability of Norfolk homes over the last 25 years, with one local MP calling the situation “little short of a catastrophe”.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that in every Norfolk district, the rising cost of homes has drastically outstripped the growth of annual wages.
The yawning gap between earnings and house prices is especially severe in north Norfolk, where the median wage is now £25,808 and the average home costs £295,250. In 1997, median earnings were £13,660 and the average home was £55,000.
It means a home in north Norfolk is now typically 11.44 times as much as local annual wages. Back in 1997, the figure was just 4.03.
Even in Great Yarmouth, the most affordable part of the county, the ratio has increased from 2.83 in 1997 to 6.74 in 2021.
Lynne Burdon, who chairs the Homes for Wells group, said the situation in north Norfolk was “particularly exacerbated in the seaside towns where second homes and holiday lets have just pushed the prices up out of reach”.
She added that it was "almost impossible to believe" the fast rate at which homes in the area are snapped up, as soon as they come on the market.
South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon said the trend shown by the statistics was “the biggest domestic concern facing this country”, adding: “It is little short of a catastrophe, which has been in the making for decades under governments of every political complexion.”
Mr Bacon said the problem had arisen because supply had not grown to meet demand in the way it would with other products.
“National housebuilders have no incentive to build houses at a rate which is fast enough to reduce or eliminate their profit margins; and the normal competitive pressures which matter elsewhere… no longer apply.
“Paradoxically, for the very thing on which people spend the greatest proportion of their incomes – for purchase or for rent – they now have the least consumer choice.”
The Conservative MP said a solution would be to allow people to commission the homes they would like to see, but creating the “regulatory environment” for such a system would need “muscular action” from government, which he is campaigning for.
Mr Bacon was last year asked by prime minister Boris Johnson to produce a report on how 'self-commissioned' new homes could be increased, which was published in August.
Custom or self-build homes are where the customer commissions their future home themselves, to move into once it is completed. In the UK, around 13,000 houses are built this way annually.
The data - how has affordability worsened in each Norfolk district?
The two ratios in each district show the amount of times higher the median cost of a home was compared with local median annual wages in 1997 and 2021.
Breckland
1997: 3.39
2021: 9.4
Broadland
1997: 4.07
2021: 9.08
Great Yarmouth
1997: 2.83
2021: 6.74
King's Lynn and West Norfolk
1997: 3.16
2021: 8.93
North Norfolk
1997: 4.03
2021: 11.44
Norwich
1997: 2.68
2021: 7.12
South Norfolk
1997: 3.81
2021: 9.04
Analysis: The national picture
The London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has remained the least affordable local authority in England and Wales in which to buy a home. In 1997, it had an affordability ratio of 11.78, but by 2021, the gap had multiplied to 36.52.
The most affordable homes in 2021 were found in Copeland, Cumbria, with an affordability ratio of 2.71. This is a relatively minor increase from Copeland's 1997 figure of 1.96 - when it was pipped to the cheapest spot by Merthyr Tydfil (which in 1997 had an affordability ratio 1.92) in Wales.
Narrowing the field down to the six counties of the East of England, Great Yarmouth's affordability ratio of 6.74 was the very cheapest of any local authority in 2021. The least affordable was found in St Albans, Hertfordshire, which had a ratio of 17.32.
Across the whole of England in 2021, full-time employees could typically expect to spend around 9.1 times their workplace-based annual earnings on purchasing a home.
This is a significant increase even since just 2020, when it was 7.9 times their workplace-based annual earnings.
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