Life in Britain's CHEAPEST town: House prices in Burnley are lower than anywhere else... but locals still can't afford them

Daily Mail​

14-06-2025

Locals say life in Burnley is like being stuck in 'a rut'.
And a stroll through the town centre quickly reveals why.
The streets here tell a rather depressing story of a region that has been left behind the rest of the UK.
Once popular retail stores lay empty and boarded up for years on end, while bookies have popped up on every street corner, and phone repair shops and vaping stores have become commonplace.
They are all the tell-tale signs of a town in decline.
The council is hopeful it can prop itself back up through its expanding university campus, regeneration projects to 'revitalise' the town centre, and investment in its growing aerospace industry.
But the value of the area is reflected in its house prices.
And according to estate agents Purple Bricks, the Lancashire town has the lowest house prices in the entire country, with an average of £113,000.
But while that might seem like a steal for young professionals or first-time buyer couples commuting to nearby Manchester, Burnley natives say its left them stuck in a rut.
The town has some of the lowest wages in the country and a lack of skilled job opportunities - leaving the majority of the population of the minimum living wage.
While the higher earners, who can afford to get on Burnley's property ladder, are 'stuck in a cycle' because the low prices of homes mean they cannot afford to move anywhere else.
Care worker Kadi Flanagan, 20, told MailOnline: 'I would not say it is cheap here.
'I know compared to other areas it might be, but compared to the normal living wage here I don't think it's affordable for most people at all.
'You've got to be working yourself, working yourself, working yourself, for years on end to be able to afford something.
'I've always lived in Burnley and from what I know all the homeowners I know have had the property in the family for generations.
'But to do it yourself now is so hard.
'The house prices can be higher elsewhere but then so are wages.
'But here the wages are so low that house prices are not meeting that same balance.
'And it's so hard to get a job in Burnley. There's a lot of jobs in care and retail but that's it.
'I think a lot of people don't want to live here anymore because of it.
'And then you've got people moving here from out the area to commute to say Manchester, and landlords who buy up homes here and rent them as shared houses.
'I don't think its fair. Of course people should be able to have a business and buy homes, but people living here should have access too.
'I do think I could maybe afford to buy a place someday but it's a long way away and it depends what you sacrifice. You've basically got to sacrifice your social life.'
According to ONS figures, Burnley has some of the lowest salaries in the country, with an average wage of £604 a week.
In fact, thinktank Centre for Cities found in its Cities Outlook report earlier this year that the average London salary is 68 per cent higher than the Burnley equivalent.
The average yearly salary of an employee in London was said to be almost £20,000 higher than in Burnley - one of the lowest paid regions of the country.
The thinktank also warned post-Covid that Burnley was one of the worst-hit regions, when comparing inflation with wages.
An employee on the average salary of £49k in London would earn what the average worker in Burnley would earn in a year in just eight months.
While bigger cities such as London and Manchester are home to a more cutting-edge job market with private sector jobs, Burnley is still predominantly made up of manufacturing and retail jobs.
And for the lower-to-middle class in Burnley, they effectively find themselves in a situation where moving anywhere else in the UK would be less affordable.
Kadi's friend Otimah Gordon, 20, who also grew up in Burnley and goes to the town's University of Central Lancashire campus, described living there as being 'stuck in a cycle'.
She told MailOnline: 'As soon as I finish university I'm moving out of here.
'Down south the cost of living is higher, but then you do earn so much more.
'It seems a bit more even. Whereas here there's a gap.
'I'd be able to manage that better and there are also just so many more job opportunities.
'But it does just feel like being stuck in an endless cycle.
'You've got to pick which one you want to go down. Stay here and have low wages but lower cost-of-living, or go elsewhere but struggle with higher prices.
'But I'd still rather get out of here. There's not much to do here. At least down South there's better quality of life, days out.
'I think a lot of people don't want to stay in this area because it's not got much to offer.
'Right now because it's summer it's okay, but when I'm back at university in September, my social life kind of goes because I need to work to get by.'
Speaking to MailOnline, an estate agent in Burnley told of how low wages mean that locals do still struggle to get on the housing ladder, but that the area is becoming more attractive to those from neighbouring cities.
Scott Riley, senior sales consultant at Clifford Smith Sutcliff said: 'Prices have inflated massively post-Covid but they are still cheap relative to other areas.
'It is an old mill town. It's an old-fashioned northern town, a previous industrial town, and I guess that affects people's wages in the area.
'It is obviously relative to wages here and the demographic, so even though house prices are low it can still be hard to get on the housing ladder.
'Some people are stuck in that sort of rut of renting and it's difficult to put together a deposit when you've got a massive chunk going to rent every month.
'But I do think it's got plenty going for it now, with the university campus expanding and aerospace industry going.
'You get people coming in from other areas, for example Manchester, where prices are so much higher but only 40 minutes from here.
'So people are drawn to Burnley, it has that label of being cheap for what you get for your money, and I do think it's on the rise.
'I have always found it a really funny place Burnley, because you get places where one end of a street is more desirable than the other end of the street. One end can be £50,60,70k, while the other end can be upwards of £100 or 150k.
'But even the higher end, you get more for what you pay here. If you pick those houses up and stick them in areas like Alderley Edge, you'll be paying a massive premium on that.'
On whether he thinks prices will continue to rise, he said: 'It's always had that thing of low house prices, but that might sort of change.
'People from out the area are coming here now.
'You do get a lot of landlords from out the area wanting to buy here because of the university campus. And its linked to the university of Central Lancashire now.
'It may not be as lucrative anymore and there's a lot of red tape now, but we still find that for every one landlord that's thinking they've had enough and want to sell, there's about five or six landlords who want to buy up here.
'They do tend to be landlords from out the area. They buy up a couple of terraced ones and still get rent from each of them.
'In Manchester the prices have gone crazy, and that will work its way out to neighbouring areas like here as well.
'And investment as well will help improve the region, investment into transport links, Burnley is back in the Premier League, the authority are doing up the town centre, these are all things that will help make it a more desirable area.'
Mr Riley told of how house prices shot up in Burnley post-Covid, but still remain relatively cheap.
According to the estate agent, an average three-bed semi-detached home is usually 'sub-£200k, around the £150-200k mark'.
Meanwhile, a two-bed terraced house can be anything up to £100k, but tends to be on average around £80k to £90k.
'The stuff in the town centre is the cheaper stuff, and the further out you go the more desirable it gets, Cliviger, those sorts of areas', he said.
Further into the town centre, more locals told of the gap between wages and housing.
One local said: 'To be completely frank, it is not cheap.
'Housing is not cheap here. Maybe compared to other areas but not compared to wages.
'I read it in the papers that you can get cheap housing here but surely that's relative to earnings.
'Even rent is unaffordable here, it is at least £600 a month for one room in a shared house.
'But we're all on minimum wages here. Most people around here, especially in retail are on minimum wage.'
Her friend chimed: 'Burnley is bad and it has gotten worse, for begging and for one thing and another.
'A lot of houses are just boarded up.'
Frank Gillies was looking at houses advertised on the window of an estate agents when he spoke to MailOnline.
The 54-year-old, who does not live in Burnley, told of how he was surprised by how 'expensive' the properties were.
He said: 'I'm surprised looking at how expensive it is.
'I'm looking at two or three-bed houses and some of them are like £300k. They're not even nice, they're dumps.
'I was a bit shocked I have to say.
'Maybe I'm shocked because my impression was it's a cheaper part of the country but it doesn't seem like it.
'There's stuff on the window for £600k and the look of it is nothing unbelievable.
'You can get something down South for that, but maybe it's arrogant to say.
'In that shop window there's nothing I would take, it's either too expensive or a dump.
'It comes as a surprise to me because I have a lot of family in Glasgow and they have a lot nicer houses there for around the £200k mark.
'My cousin has just bought a gorgeous four-bed slightly out of Glasgow for £200k and that's the sort of pricing I expected here.'
Michael and Pamela Irving, both 73, told of how they moved to Burnley from neighbouring Rossendale as they purchased a cheaper bungalow.
They said: 'The prices are reasonable here compared to other places but it's not the best area.
'That said, it's also not the worst. It depends where you buy really.
'We came here from Rossendale because we found a cheap bungalow.
'It's changed a lot since six years ago. There are a lot more people begging on the streets now, drunks, it's a sign of the times I guess.
'But it's definitely value for money here. But the problem is wages are lower here too.'
Annmarie and Chris Ireland are both renting in nearby Accrington and say it is impossible to buy property in the area now.
They said: 'We rent a home in Accrington and it's a two-bed terraced but rent is just over £600.
'You can't get anything for under that and it's the same here.
'And buying just isn't an option. It is unaffordable.
'There's a 30 per cent gap between north and south, the infrastructure is totally different down South to what it is up here.
'And this town used to be thriving, I used to come here constantly.
'The nightlife was amazing, you had a Wetherspoons there, and come down here to pubs right round here, now they are all coffee shops, vape shops, bookies.
'This used to be the place to come out drinking, now I've noticed it's full of empty shops.