First-time buyers in London will need £106,000 salary by 2020

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Housing in central LondonImage source, Getty Images

First-time buyers in London will need to earn £106,000 to buy a home in 2020, the charity Shelter has predicted.

London buyers will also need a deposit of £138,000 to buy a typical home which it calculates will then be worth £558,000.

Elsewhere in the country buyers will need to earn £64,000 to get on the property ladder in 2020, Shelter said.

The government says it has committed to deliver 200,000 new starter homes with a 20% discount to first-time buyers.

The price of a typical first-time buyer home in London is currently £419,000.

Elsewhere in the country, the current price is £220,000, which is expected to rise to £270,000 in 2020, requiring a deposit of £46,000.

The charity's calculations are based on average mortgages, typical deposit amounts, academic research and official house price figures.

Campbell Robb, Shelter's chief executive, said the figures underlined the need for investment in homes "that people on ordinary incomes can actually afford to live in".

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said the government had committed to deliver 200,000 new starter homes, which will offer at least a 20% discount to first-time buyers.

He said: "We've already helped 291,000 people to buy through Government-backed initiatives and doubled the housing budget to help build 400,000 affordable homes."

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