Two Scottish cities have made the list (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

A new map has revealed the cheapest and most expensive areas of the UK for house hunters buying for the first time.

Trying to get on the property ladder can be a daunting prospect, especially when you consider that a typical first-time buyer home has a record price tag of £226,399, according to Rightmove.

We’re also paying a lot more per square foot than other countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Canada and the United States.

But there are still plenty of cities across Britain where you can bag yourself a relative bargain in comparison to those places where houses very much come at a premium.

Property website Rightmove has taken a look at the average asking prices for typical first-time buyer-type homes with a maximum of two bedrooms in 60 major urban locations.

Figures are based on some general assumptions such as having a 10% deposit and paying back the mortgage over 25 years.

Unsurprisingly, London tops the list of most expensive places, with the average price of a property in the capital setting you back more than half a million pounds.

Caption: SPEAK TO EXPERT: What does Bank of England hiking interest rates mean for my mortgage?
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Bradford in Yorkshire was identified as the nation’s cheapest city to buy a typical first home, costing on average £104,643 with monthly mortgage payments of around £521.

The UK city where you’ll get the second best bang for your buck is Carlisle, Cumbria where average prices are £104,784 and a mortgage sees you pay £522 per month.

Aberdeen in Scotland was the third most affordable area averaging £106,088, followed closely by Hull and then Dundee where prices average at £106,939 and £111,415 respectively.

Behind London, St Albans, Hertfordshire, was named as the priciest city to get on the ladder, with average monthly mortgage payments coming in at £1,958.

The leafy cathedral city is popular with families and commuters, with train links into London. 

If you want to buy for the first time in London itself, it would cost a hefty £2,533 per month in mortgage payments. 

It will come as no shock to learn that the prestigious university cities of Cambridge and Oxford made the top five most expensive places with average prices upwards of £350,000.

Above them in third place was Bath, with an average price of £354,636 and monthly mortgage payments of £1,765.

Rightmove said its findings suggest paying a monthly first-time buyer mortgage with a 10% deposit is cheaper than renting in around half of the cities it looked.

This rises to two-thirds of cities if buyers are able to raise a bigger deposit, at 15% of the purchase price.

Rightmove’s findings also indicated that first-time buyers in Glasgow could potentially make the biggest monthly savings in cash terms by getting on the ladder, with the average monthly mortgage payment for a first home being £215 per month cheaper than the average rent.

At the other end of the spectrum, first-time buyers in St Albans could potentially end up paying £525 more per month when on the property ladder than they were when they were renting, the research indicated.

Rightmove’s property expert Tim Bannister 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.’

Last month, the top 20 areas in the UK where house prices have risen the most was revealed.

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Will your first home be in Bradford or St Albans?