Fancy buying Buckingham Palace? Royal home 'would take 44,000 years to pay off'

It would take the average home buyer 44,000 years to pay off a mortgage on Buckingham Palace, according to a new study.

Number crunchers at money.co.uk worked out how much the UK’s palaces could be worth if they were to be placed on the market, and then how long it might take to pay off a mortgage.

They first worked out the size of the palace based on planning tools, and then used the UK average house price per metre squared to assess the value.

They then added on 50% to take into account the historical and cultural significance of the royal home, giving a total value for Buckingham Palace of £1.3bn.

According to the site, that could leave the buyer with a monthly mortgage rate of about £3,500,000.

Of course, the Queen doesn’t have to pay a mortgage on the property, nor is it ever likely to go on the market.

But if she was to sell up another of the royal palaces, buyers might be more interested in the slightly more affordable Windsor Castle, where she is currently living with Prince Philip.

It was valued at about £947,800,000, and would take 31,595 years to pay off the mortgage.

Despite those eye watering prices, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle did not top the leaderboard when it came to valuing palaces around the world.

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The Louvre Palace, now an art gallery, topped the list, with an estimated value of £4.5bn.

Buckingham Palace made it to seventh place on the list, while Windsor Castle was 14th.

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Of Buckingham Palace, Joel Kempson, from money.co.uk said: “Its 77,000m² size and central London location helps push its value up considerably. On the average UK salary, and with a 10% deposit of £130 million, it would take just over 44,000 years to buy it outright.”

He added of Windsor: “Being the UK’s second largest palace, it’s 54,825m² grounds mean it would take the average UK worker over 31,000 years to own it.

“If you haven't got that sort of time on your hands, Sandringham House – one of the Queen’s two private residences – is valued at £777.2 million and would take just 25,908 years to buy outright.”

At the other end of the scale are the much smaller and less grand royal residences of Tamarisk, on the Isles of Scilly, was valued at £1.3m and would require a 44 year mortgage.

It makes it the only royal residence the owner might live to see the final mortgage payment on.

Tamarisk is one of the properties owned by Prince Charles on the Isles of Scilly, and is part of his collection of holiday cottages.

The Thatched Lodge House in Richmond was valued at £10.5m and would take more than 360 years to pay back on an average UK salary.

It’s the home of the Queen’s cousin Princess Alexandra, and is in the picturesque location of Richmond Park.

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Prince Andrew’s home of the Royal Lodge, in the grounds of Windsor, got a valuation of £117.5m, and would take nearly 4,000 years to pay back.

Andrew, 60, currently lives there with his former wife Sarah Ferguson.

His daughter Princess Eugenie is moving into Frogmore Cottage, the nearby home which was given to Prince Harry and Meghan when they got married in 2018.

That got a valuation of £69.3m. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex recently agreed to pay rent on the house, and paid off £2.4m worth of renovation work which was undertaken before they moved in.

It’s thought there is a private arrangement between Harry and Eugenie as she prepares to live there with her husband Jack, ahead of the arrival of their first child.

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Several of Prince Charles’s homes feature on the list, including his London property, Clarence House, and his Scottish home, Birkhall.

Taken together, it gives him a property value of about £3bn.

Money.co.uk also found out that nine in 10 of the world’s largest palatial residencies are based in Europe and the average cost of a royal palace is £2.3bn.

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