Hometrack has announced that in the past 12 months house price inflation rose from 3.7% to 5.5%. The leader of this growth in prices is Edinburgh with 8.1% over the last years. Other cities that posted strong results include Nottingham with a year on year growth of 8%, Manchester with 7.4% and Birmingham with 7%.
The only two cities that saw a fall in house price growth were Aberdeen with -6.9% and Cambridge with -1.2%.
Cardiff, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield have all recorded a sustained upward shift in the annual rate of growth. These cities had underperformed in the past two years, but the rising demand and a lack of housing stock led to house prices to increase.
In the capital, the market has seen a growth of 1.6%, with Hometrack saying that there is no sign of this falling into negative territory in the near term. However, London is the city with the longest sales period, with properties taking even 17 week to sell. This is a result of sales not being able to keep up with new supply, as there are 1.5 homes going on the market for every sale. The key would be for sellers to be more realistic with their asking prices.
“We expect house prices across London to continue to post modest falls in real terms over the next 12 to 24 months as prices realign to what buyers are prepared to pay,” said Hometrack. “It is early days, but there are some tentative signs that sales volumes could start to stabilise over 2018 as a result of more realistic pricing.”
