THE most and least affordable places to live in Wales for people trying to get on the property ladder have been revealed.

Nationwide Building Society measured by the typical first-time buyer house price to earnings ratios in local areas across Britain, using Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.

In Wales, the least affordable place to live is Cardiff, where house prices are on average 5.9 times as expensive as earnings.

Merthyr Tydfil is the most affordable area to live in Wales, where that figure drops to 3.2.

Across Britain, Kensington and Chelsea is the least affordable location for people trying to get on the property ladder, while East Ayrshire in Scotland is the most affordable place, analysis has found.

In Kensington and Chelsea, the typical house price is 16.8 times earnings, the report found.

At the other end of the spectrum, East Ayrshire in Scotland has average first-time buyer house prices at 2.3 times typical earnings.

East Ayrshire covers a large area to the south of Glasgow, with Kilmarnock and Cumnock being its main towns.

Andrew Harvey, senior economist at Nationwide, said: “In Wales and Scotland, the respective capital cities see strong demand for housing and have the highest house price to earnings ratios.”

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Looking at the areas which have seen the biggest improvements in affordability between 2015 and 2020, Mr Harvey said: “The London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has seen the biggest improvement in affordability over the period, with the average first-time buyer house price to earnings ratio falling from 15.6 to 11.5.

“This was driven by a combination of lower prices (12 per cent lower than five years ago) and higher earnings (up 17 per cent compared with 2015).

“In Scotland, the city of Aberdeen has seen the greatest improvement in affordability, with average first-time buyer house price to earnings ratio declining from 4.7 to 3.2 in the last five years. This is predominantly due to the 28 per cent fall in average prices over the period, though incomes have also risen by seven per cent.

“In the South West, the district of Torridge in north Devon has seen its house price to earnings ratio improve from 6.2 to 5.3.

“This appears to be due to strong growth in earnings over the period, which were 32 per cent higher compared with 2015.

“Affordability gains in other regions have been more modest. Overall, 25 per cent of local authorities in Great Britain have seen an improvement in affordability compared with 2015.”