New research has found Scottish towns are the cheapest in the UK for first-time buyers.
Analysis from property website Rightmove also found that a typical monthly mortgage payment on a first-time buyer property is £350 more than five years ago.
Scottish towns made up half of the top ten list of lowest-priced areas across the UK for first-time buyers.
Kilmarnock in East Ayrshire was the most affordable, with a typical first home costing £84,325.
Greenock and Paisley both come in at under £100,000, and East Kilbride and Ayr are just over.
Across Scotland, the average first-time buyer property now costs £140,783.
The average monthly mortgage payment on a typical first-time buyer property, a two-bedroom or fewer home, is now £940 compared to £590 in 2020, despite improvements in the mortgage market from last year.
However, the average payment is still £155 lower than the peak in 2023.
The analysis assumes a first-time buyer has been able to raise a 20% deposit and has opted to spread the cost of the mortgage over 30 years.
Average wage growth has outpaced the rise in the average asking price for a typical first-time property buyer.
Average earnings have grown by 30% in the last five years, compared to a 17% increase in the price of a typical first-time buyer’s home.
In London, an average first-time buyer type property is 6.8 times the national average wage of two people, now priced at £500,066.
| Average asking price | Price change | |
| Kilmarnock, Ayrshire | £84,325 | -1.0% |
| Greenock, Inverclyde | £88,862 | +0.7% |
| Grimsby, Lincolnshire | £93,427 | -1.2% |
| Blackpool, Lancashire | £93,711 | 0.0% |
| Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire | £95,473 | +0.8% |
| Hartlepool | £99,525 | +10.7% |
| Paisley, Renfrewshire | £99,570 | +2.3% |
| East Kilbride, Glasgow | £100,814 | +4.1% |
| Ayr, Ayrshire | £101,391 | +1.0% |
| Burnley, Lancashire | £102,848 | +6.2% |
Toby Leek, National Association of Estate Agents president, said: “Recent market data shows that the average first-time buyer currently sits around 33 years old, which is almost a 10% increase compared to only ten years back.
“As well as the continued increase in the average age of first-time buyers, they also, on average, had to make a deposit of over £60,000 and typically paid around £310,000 for their first home reiterating the consistent challenges and strains placed on their affordability”.
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