Average monthly mortgage payments in Bradford for a standard first-time buyer property are £521 per month, according to data from Rightmove.

The second cheapest city to be a first-time buyer is Carlisle with average monthly mortgage payments of £522, followed by Aberdeen at £528 per month, and Hull at £532 per month.

According to Rightmove, the average monthly mortgage payment for first-time buyer properties across Great Britain is now at £1,127 per month, a 21% increase year-on-year. The average monthly rent is currently £1,120 per month, an 11% increase on numbers last year.

Mortgage rates are based a five-year fixed, at 90% loan to value (LTV) at the best-buy rate of 4.45%, spread over 25 years.

The most expensive place for your first home

Unsurprisingly, London is the most expensive with average monthy mortgage payments of £2,533. The capital is followed by St Albans, Bath and Cambridge.

St Albans residents have average monthly payments of £1,958 per month, Bath £1,765, and Cambridge £1,763.

The rental ups and downs

Rightmove also found that in half of UK cities, it is now cheaper to pay a monthly mortgage than to pay rent. And if buyers are able to provide a 15% deposit, then the firm noted that it becomes cheaper to own than to rent in two thirds of cities.

First-time buyers in Glasgow make the biggest savings in cash terms by getting on the ladder, with the average monthly mortgage payment for a first home being £215 per month cheaper the average rent. However, first-time buyers in St. Albans see the biggest increase in monthly payments when purchasing a first home of £525 compared to the equivalent rent.

Tim Bannister, property expert at Rightmove, said: “For those who are able to save up the deposit, it’s still cheaper to pay off a mortgage as a first-time buyer in many areas than pay the equivalent in monthly rent, despite prices reaching a new record at a national level and mortgage rates rising.

“It highlights how frenetic the rental market has been for a long time now, with many areas continuing to see record rents and fierce competition between tenants for the properties available. It helps to explain why we’re seeing such determination from first-time buyers to continue to get onto the ladder despite the economic headwinds that they face, and why we’re seeing buyers increasingly return to cities while a bigger proportion of renters are looking to move away.”