Just 43 homes available in London are "affordable" to typical working families buying their first property, according to housing charity Shelter.

The charity says the shocking figure – which equates to just 0.1 per cent of properties on the market with at least two bedrooms - would be even lower if it had not included houseboats and a mobile home in a study it carried out.

Research looked at the asking prices on hundreds of thousands of homes listed for sale on the Zoopla website and compared them with the mortgage an average family trying to get on to the property ladder would be able to afford.

Across England it was found fewer than one in five, or just 17 per cent of suitable properties were affordable for families with an average income of £30,748.

Unsurprisingly, the problem was found to be most acute in London, where many boroughs were among the 35 local authority areas in which Shelter found no affordable suitable homes.

These included Camden, Croydon, Enfield, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and Westminster.

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The charity based its study on an average first-time buying family being a couple in their 20s with one or more children, bringing in one full-time and one part-time average income.

It said the "very low" proportions of listings which its analysis deemed to be affordable underlines the difficulties faced by first-time buyer.

Chief executive Campbell Robb said: "For the next government, whoever that may be, it's time for the talk to stop and the work to begin.

“Politicians need to act swiftly to deliver the plan that will build the 250,000 homes a year we need."