Nationwide’s latest quarterly report tells us that although house prices increased between Q4 2013 and the same quarter last year, growth has slowed down.
Although this sort of decline is expected towards the end of a calendar year, it’s interesting to see that the North of England bucked the trend. Could this indicate a shift in demand for property in the region perhaps? In contrast to the rest of England, the region’s house prices went up 0.1% at the end of 2014, compared to the same quarter in 2013.
London prices are down from a 21% growth between Q3 2013 and Q3 2014, to 17.8% year-on-year in Q4. Annual figures for the East of England show that price growth between Q3 and Q4 has dropped by 1.2%.
Although the growth has slowed pace somewhat, the UK still experienced an overall 8.3% house price rise in Q4 2014 compared to Q4 2013.
The average house price in the UK is now £189,002. Unsurprisingly, London is the most expensive with the average cost clocking in at £406,730 – property there is now 35% more expensive than the peak in 2007. The East of England’s average price sits at £194,212, with the cheapest average price found in Northern Ireland at £120,685.
Scotland’s average property price is currently £142,527 – that’s 4.2% up on 2013 annual figures – with the most expensive Scottish city being Aberdeen.
In terms of an annual price increase, the best performing locations are St Albans, Reading, Belfast, London and Nottingham. Manchester, Cardiff and Sunderland are among the worst performing.
And on a local level, Cambridgeshire’s housing market has risen by a third over the last decade, with an annual Q4 increase of 15%. Suffolk has gone up 21% in 10 years, with an annual 13% increase. Norfolk’s 10-year rise is a more modest 14%, and an annual figure of 9%. Yet, Peterborough’s property prices remained at the same level between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014.
