One bedroom flat in London costs the same as a six bed house

For the cost of a one-bedroom flat in central London (£1.13m) you could buy a six-bedroom house in any other UK city, barring Birmingham, research by MoneySuperMarket found.

Buying a six-bedroom house in Bradford costs only £163,500, compared to central London’s £7m.

Brighton has the most expensive average property cost at £706,603 and Swansea is the most expensive for bills per month at £258.56.

The average property in Leicester costs just £203,867 and Bristol is the cheapest for home utilities per month at £123.10.

Southampton is the most cost-effective city to live in the UK, with monthly bills coming to £218.48 on average, including home insurance.

Kevin Pratt, consumer affairs expert at MoneySuperMarket, said: “It’s astonishing to see the huge disparities in property prices for renters and buyers in the UK.

“Even a distance of a few miles – well within commuting range – can change the value of a house or flat by many thousands of pounds.

“If you compare the price of a big house in parts of the north of England with its equivalent in London, you can measure the difference in millions.”

Westminster has an average renting cost of £23,560 a month across all properties (ranging from one-bedroom flats to six-bedroom houses), making it the most expensive in the UK.

In Bexley, only 14 miles away, rent is just under £1,500 a month.

Renting in Camden comes in at less than half of the price of renting in Westminster, with an average of £9,030 a month.

Kensington and Chelsea still has an average cost of £16,700 each month across all properties, and the highest cost in the UK for a one-bedroom flat each month at £6,890.

Pratt added: “This is useful information for anyone relocating, perhaps because of a change in job or family circumstances. Should they cast their property-hunting net that bit wider, or maybe throw it in another direction, so that they get more bang for their buck with their rent or mortgage payments?

“And anyone sitting in a relatively expensive property could start thinking about upsizing to grander accommodation in another part of the country. That’s not an option for everyone, of course, but it’s fascinating to see what you could afford if you upped sticks to live elsewhere.”

London is surprisingly affordable in terms of monthly costs, at only 1% above the UK average, despite being the most expensive city in which to purchase a house, with the average house price being 621% more expensive than the average of other cities covered.

London is the most expensive city in the UK to insure your home, at 30% above the average of cities studied, closely followed by Hull at 22% above average.

The cheapest place to insure a home is Sunderland, where home insurance is 12% cheaper than the average.

Hull isn't the cheapest when it came to renting, fifth overall, but in terms of buying, it fared well, with an average overall cost of £160,397

Sunderland fared well too, at £65,000 to rent a one-bedroom flat. The overall average cost in the area was just £176,002.