HOUSE prices in Trafford are spiralling out of control, according to a new report by the national Housing Federation.

The report entitled Broken Market Broken Dreams says increasing costs mean owning a home is already out of reach of many families.

The report underlines the divide in house prices and average pay in Greater Manchester, where the cheapest house average is in Tameside at £122,118, where a worker is on a wage of £21, 320.

Trafford comes out on top in Greater Manchester, with the average house price topping £242, 653 and where a worker can expect to earn an average of £30,316.

The federation warns that with the Greater Manchester average house price at £152,936, it is beyond the reach of local pay-packets, with people expected to pay nearly six and a half times the average income here to own a home.

It says the average salary for people in Greater Manchester of £23,821 doesn’t come close to the £34,957 required for even an average mortgage in the region, pricing thousands of workers and families out of owning a home.

The federation says that because of the high prices people wanting to own their own homes in Trafford would need to fork out eight times the borough's average salary.

Meanwhile, privately rented properties in Trafford now top £800, while the average elsewhere is £542.

The federation says it’s not just those out of work who are struggling to afford to keep a roof over their heads. In the North West 17.4 per cent of all households claiming housing benefit are in work, a proportion which has more than doubled since 2008.

The report predicts that over the next two decades, 360,000 new households are expected to form in the North West and if properties aren’t brought back into use or enough new homes built, the region will face a shortfall of 195,000 homes by 2031.

Katie Teasdale, external affairs manager for the National Housing Federation in the North West, said: “In some places spiralling costs have put housing out of reach of many people. In other places we see communities that are struggling - in desperate need of jobs and regeneration.

We need to sit down with local leaders to make sure that good quality accessible housing sits alongside skills, jobs and transport.

"It’s taken us a generation to get into this housing crisis and will take us a generation to get out of it."

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