SINGLE first-time home buyers in Rochester need to earn £4,000 more than the average salary in the area to buy a house. Research by the Halifax shows the average house price paid by first-time buyers in Rochester is £96,305.

To raise a mortgage for a house of that price could require a salary of more than £28,000 a year — but the average income is less than £24,000. By contrast, salaries in Chatham and Gillingham are similar, but house prices are much lower, at about £80,000 on average.

President of Medway Chamber of Commerce Paul Waterhouse said: "There is little that can be done, as such, because this is a case of supply and demand. Either wages will have to go up or prices will have to stabilise, and I can't see employers paying thousand of pounds more in salaries."

Halifax calculated the amount first-time buyers could afford by multiplying the average income by 3.25 per cent, with deposit of £5,000. The average price first-time buyers have to pay for houses in Gillingham is £81,426, and in Chatham £78,035.

Nikki Wood, 31, from Lordswood, agreed a price of £98,500 for her end-of-terrace house last October. But by the time she moved in February, the price of a similar house nearby was £114,000 — 16 per cent more than she paid. She said: "I feel sorry for first-time buyers. I would not be able to afford to buy my house now."

But compared with other parts of the county, the average house price paid by a first-time buyer in Rochester is low. First-time buyers in Sevenoaks have been spending on average £216,566 to buy a home, and in Windsor £217,436.

Trevor Porter, financial services manager for Waterhouse in Chatham, said the housing boom had come about partly because of the buoyant economy and investors buying up homes as a substitute for pensions. "There is talk of a half-point rise in interest rates, but I suspect it would take a lift of at least two per cent to dampen the increases in house prices," he said.