The average price of houses in York rose more this year than anywhere else, having put on more than 23 per cent, according to Halifax, the country’s biggest mortgage lender. That makes for an average cash increase of about £70,000.

House prices in Chelmsford, Essex rose by 16.8 per cent, and homes in Milton Keynes, a 35-minute train journey from London, rose 13.5 per cent.

Prices in the East Midlands towns of Kettering, Derby and Wellingborough all rose by between 15 per cent and 16 per cent. Swansea was the highest riser in Wales, with prices up 17.5 per cent.

“Overall 2022 was another year of rapid house price growth for most areas in the UK [and] unlike many years in the past, the list isn’t dominated by towns and cities in the southeast,” Kim Kinnaird, director of mortgages at Halifax, said.

London, which for years was the driving force of the property market, lagged again as people moved out to the suburbs, although there have been signs of late that this trend is starting to reverse, especially among renters.

Over the past 12 months prices in the capital have risen by a “comparatively modest” 7.2 per cent, with almost no growth at all in some boroughs. For example, prices in Islington, Tower Hamlets and Westminster rose by less than 1 per cent. That said, at an average of almost £600,000, houses remain far more expensive in London than almost everywhere else.

Nationally, Leicester was the worst-performing area this year, with average prices there dropping by 3.6 per cent over the year. Prices in Hull and Stoke-on-Trent also fell.

Kinnaird said that the rampant house price inflation of the past couple of years had made it “much more challenging” for first-time buyers to get on the property ladder.

Halifax expects that prices will fall next year, which should help those looking to buy their first home, although it said that prices would remain comfortably higher than where they were less than three years ago.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the average house in Britain has increased in value by 26 per cent, or £81,000, according to Halifax.

Source: Tom Howard. The Times. 

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