UK house price growth remains robust but London is lagging behind

House prices in the UK increased by 5.4% in the year to September 2017, up from 4.8% the previous month to an average of £226,367, the latest official figures show.

The figures from the Land Registry also show that month on month prices increased by 0.4% and are now £11,000 higher than in September 2016 and £1,000 higher than August 2017.

A breakdown of the figure show that the North West recorded the greatest increase in average property price year on year with a rise of 7.3% and also the biggest monthly rise with growth of 2.1%.

London saw the lowest annual price growth with an increase of 2.5% and also the only monthly price fall of 0.2% with the most expensive homes in Kensington and Chelsea with an average price of £1.2 million.

In Wales the average price increased by 5.3% year on year and by 0.6% month on month to
£152,661 while in Scotland prices increased by 3.1% year on year but fell by 1.3% month on month to £144,924.

Experts say that the most notable trend in recent months has been the poorer performance in London and Richard Snook, senior economist at PwC, pointed out that price gains are being experienced on increasingly low transaction volumes, which were 15.2% lower in July 2017 than July 2016. ‘This does point to a lack of broader market momentum and may lead to a softening in price growth as we move into 2018,’ he explained.

According to Graham Davidson, managing director of buy to let specialist Sequre Property Investment, the indications for investors is that if they want higher yields and capital growth then they need to look North.

‘The supply and demand imbalance across the country is showing little sign of being corrected, so the demand for high quality rental accommodation will remain. With cities like Manchester tipped for a 28.2% price growth and Liverpool expected to see a 22.8% increase, key northern cities should be on every investors radar,’ he said.