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House prices still shooting up across UK, says official house price survey – but just look at the gaps
House prices still shooting up across UK, says official house price survey – but just look at the gaps
Original Source: Property Eye
Original Author: Rosalind Renshaw
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The average price of a property in the UK stood at £220,094 in April, the Land Registry/ONS have reported.
The figure was £3,000 or 1.6% up on the month before, and £12,000 or 5.6% up on April last year.
However, it is totally at odds with Rightmove’s latest asking price for properties coming new to the market, which for May stood at £317,281 – a gap of nearly £100,000.
There were other huge gaps in house prices, depending on where you are in the UK.
According to the Land Registry/ONS, house prices varied across the different countries: in England the average was £236,519; in Northern Ireland £124,007; in Scotland £145,735; and in Wales £147,921.
The highest English house prices were in London, averaging £482,779, and the lowest in the north-east at £123,234.
The Land Registry referred to official data which says April’s transactions were 20.3% up on the same month last year, when the market slowed drastically after the 3% Stamp Duty surcharge was brought in on the purchase of second properties.
However, the Land Registry itself gives transaction figures for February – the latest month for which data is available.
These show year-on-year slumps everywhere in the UK apart from Scotland, where there were 5,662 transactions, up 2.8% on February last year.
In England there were 52,883 transactions, down 18.2%; in Northern Ireland there were 4,379 transactions, down 28.5%; and in Wales there were 2,908 transactions, down 8.8%.
Separately, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has reported that home buyers took out 51,200 house purchase loans in April, down 14% on the previous month.
First-time buyers accounted for about half the borrowers, taking out 25,400 loans, down 18% month on month.
Buy-to-let borrowers took out 5,300 house purchase loans, down 21% on a monthly basis.
The Bank of England has also reported a fall in residential mortgage activity.
It said that £60.4bn of new residential loans was advanced during the first quarter of this year. This was down 3.8% on the previous quarter and down 5.6% on the same quarter last year.
