Scots house prices grow at faster rate than London

HOUSE prices in Edinburgh and Glasgow have grown at a faster rate than those in London in recent months, property analyst Hometrack has reported.

Edinburgh and Glasgow house prices have grown at a faster rate than London. Picture: Esme Allen

Property values in Edinburgh have seen the biggest upswing over the last three months out of the 20 cities monitored by Hometrack, with prices increasing by 1.8 per cent over the period to reach £196,900 on average.

House prices in Glasgow have seen a quarterly increases of 0.9 per cent to reach £110,300.

The other cities outdoing London house prices include Southampton, Bristol and Birmingham.

Southampton also saw a quarterly increase of 0.9 per cent with house prices reaching £192,300 on average.

London property prices increased by 0.5 per cent in the three months to November, slowing from average quarterly increases of 1.4 per cent seen in the capital over the last year.

Despite the recent cooldown in the London market, average property values in the capital have leapt by nearly £57,000 over the last year, which the report said is almost twice the UK’s average income.

Prices have increased in London at the same rate over the last quarter as they have in Manchester, Portsmouth and Belfast, which also recorded 0.5 per cent growth.

Meanwhile, property values in Bristol and Birmingham both recorded a 0.6 per cent uplift in the three months to November.

Homes in Bristol are now worth £218,600 typically, having become £26,600 more expensive over the last year, while those in Birmingham have an average value of £134,300, marking a year-on-year increase of £8,200, according to the report.

Liverpool has recorded the smallest increase in property values over the last year, with a rise of just over £3,000, taking the average house price there to £107,000.

London property prices now stand at £403,200 typically.

CONNECT WITH THE SCOTSMAN

• Subscribe to our daily newsletter (requires registration) and get the latest news, sport and business headlines delivered to your inbox every morning

• You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google +

Compared with the previous peak of the market in 2007, London, Cambridge and Oxford have seen the biggest uplifts, with house prices in these cities now sitting at 30.5 per cent, 28.7 per cent and 21.9 per cent above their pre-financial crisis highs respectively.

A typical buyer in Cambridge faces paying £40,000 more for a property than they did a year ago while one in Oxford would need to spend £31,600 more than they would have done in November 2013.

But Hometrack said that those markets which have seen the strongest price growth are also now starting to see the clearest signs of a slowdown.

Richard Donnell, research director at Hometrack, said the slowdown in London will act as a drag on the rate of house price growth across the UK over the next year.

He said: “The rate of growth in house prices is starting to lose momentum across other cities in southern England while across the rest of the country modest levels of house price appreciation continue as prices rise off a low base.”

Mr Donnell said that, overall, he expects property values to increase at a rate which is more in line with earnings growth next year, with a 2 per cent house price increase pencilled in for the whole of 2015 across the UK.

He said that stricter mortgage lending rules which came into force in April and force mortgage applicants to produce stronger evidence about their spending habits in order to make sure they truly can afford their repayments are having an impact on the pace of house price increases.

Mr Donnell said that a fifth of London postcodes have registered price falls in the last three months.

He continued: “We would expect to see further, modest price falls in the months ahead as prices re-align off a high base to what buyers are prepared to pay.”

Here are the average house prices in each city monitored by Hometrack in November and the percentage and cash increase seen over the last year:

• London, £403,200, 16.4 per cent, £56,900

• Aberdeen, £195,200, 14.3 per cent, £24,500

• Bristol, £218,600, 13.8 per cent, £26,600

• Cambridge, £338,500, 13.4 per cent, £40,000

• Oxford, £340,700, 10.2 per cent, £31,600

• Southampton, £192,300, 10.1 per cent, £17,600

• Edinburgh, £196,900, 9.5 per cent, £17,100

• Portsmouth, £195,200, 8.8 per cent, £15,900

• Belfast, £115,500, 8.4 per cent, £9,000

• Cardiff, £176,000, 7.4 per cent, £12,200

• Nottingham, £128,600, 7.4 per cent, £8,900

• Manchester, £137,100, 7.3 per cent, £9,300

• Bournemouth, £242,900, 7.2 per cent, £16,400

• Leeds, £140,000, 6.9 per cent, £9,100

• Newcastle, £123,300, 6.7 per cent, £7,800

• Birmingham, £134,300, 6.4 per cent, £8,200

• Leicester, £143,700, 6.3 per cent, £8,600

• Glasgow, £110,300, 5.7 per cent, £6,000

• Sheffield, £124,900, 5.4 per cent, £6,500

• Liverpool, £107,000, 3.0 per cent, £3,200

SCOTSMAN TABLET AND IPHONE APPS

• Download your free 30-day trial for our iPad, Android and Kindle apps

• Keep up to date with all aspects of Scottish life with The Scotsman iPhone app, completely free to download and use