"It highlights the need for suitable housing stock for singles and this is a consideration housebuilders must make when bringing developments to market"
Alliance Fund analysed the areas of the nation where single occupant dwellings make up the largest percentage of overall homes. They then looked at which of these single occupancy hotspots were home to a more affordable cost of buying or renting when compared to the national average.
Across England & Wales, the average house price is currently £309,902, while the current cost of renting sits at £873 per month. It’s also estimated that 30.2% of all households are home to just one person, meaning that around 7.5m people are living on their own.
Single homebuyers looking for love might be tempted to focus their search on areas that have the highest proportion of fellow single people. With the highest level of one person households in the land, this would lead them to the City of London (51%), Kensington and Chelsea (44%) and the City of Westminster (43%).
However, they might want to think twice as the cost of putting down roots to find love in these areas is substantial. In all three areas, the average house price is in excess of £900,000, climbing to £1.3m in Kensington and Chelsea, while the average rent ranges between £1,904 to £2,945 per month.
And so it is that single homebuyers looking for love should turn their attention away from London and look instead at Norwich.
38.9% of homes in the artsy Norfolk city have a single occupant, while local house prices are well below the national average at £249,416, with the average monthly cost of renting (£865) also coming in below the national benchmark.
Other strong contenders for those in search of somewhere to settle down and couple up include Blackpool, Liverpool and Barrow-in-Furness, where single person households account for between 36% and 38% of all housing stock, while the average cost of buying and renting also comes in below the average for England and Wales.
South Tyneside, Hastings, Scarborough and Chesterfield are also affordable options for both renting and buying, while they also rank within the top 15 areas of the nation where the level of one person households is concerned.
CEO of Alliance Fund, Iain Crawford, commented: “The high cost of homeownership is well documented and for many of us, it’s an aspiration that simply can’t be fulfilled alone. But that’s not to say that we don’t value independent living across England and Wales, with single person households accounting for almost a third of all housing stock.
"Whether these residents are living alone by choice, or they’re simply unlucky in love, it highlights the need for suitable housing stock for singles and this is a consideration housebuilders must make when bringing developments to market, both where sales units are concerned, as well as within the build to rent sector.”
