House price falls: region by region

There's no denying that house prices are falling, the question is by how much? There are hordes of house price statistics, all of them pointing down, but by differing amounts because they measure different periods of time and different things.

Halifax reported this week that house prices fell 1.7 per cent in July, taking the annual fall to 11 per cent. Nationwide's latest index says property prices are down 8 per cent over the past year and Hometrack says the fall is just 4 per cent.

Countrywide statistics, like this, are useful for a market overview but they are not going to tell you what is happening in your street.

A regional breakdown like the one below can provide a more reliable picture, but because prices and sentiment vary dramatically from area to area it still might not provide an accurate reflection.

So what is happening in your neighbourhood? Do the regional stats reflect what is happening on your street or are they wide of the mark? We want to hear your views.

Regional breakdown (annual change, average price)

East Anglia:            -3.0 per cent,        £222,779

East Midlands:     - 6.0 per cent,         £171,643 

Greater London:    1.4 per cent,      £400,258

North:                  - 4.9 per cent,        £153,372

North West:         - 2.6 per cent,        £175,757

South East:          - 0.4 per cent,       £298,692

South West:         - 3.4 per cent,       £254,912

West Midlands:    - 4.8 per cent,       £192,017

Yorkshire:           - 3.7 per cent,       £169,160

Isle of Man:          0.5 per cent,     £266,492

N. Ireland:          - 21.1 per cent,    £181,078

Scotland:             - 4.5 per cent    £137,920

Wales:                   - 3.4 per cent     £180,081

Figures for England and Wales are based on the asking prices of homes on Rightmove.co.uk, which displays details of around 90 per cent of all property sales across England and Wales. Other data from latest Halifax regional house price survey.

By David Budworth

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Comments

[bill willmott]

Martin Fletcher is spot on. People should be buying property as a place to live not as an investment and budget accordingly. Over the next 3 years demand will return and the market will pick up, hopefully at a more gradual rate and not the crazy market which peaked last summer.

An Estate Agent

[peter c]

how about the10 stupidest things to put in a newspaper?

[Paul Weaver]

Seems as if the market is ready for a shake up. The US market had suffered before us and they started doing home swaps or property exchanges. This is something that's coming to the UK via sites like homeswapper4sale that are based upon the rental swap site like homeswapper... It's a simple process of selling your home to the people you're buying off... not only a focused way of selling for the individual, but a great tool for the Estate Agent wanting to bolster their sales...

[Ilka Nosworthy]

Just sold my Ealing house after 15 months - dropped from £550K to £435K! Buying in rural Wiltshire - price drop about 1%. Certainly more seems to be moving in the Southwest than Greater London. According to my agent, he has 50 properties on the market and only three proceedable including mine!

[Antony Ashton]

The house price market has a marked positive skew caused by the very few houses that go for several million pounds, most of these are in London, and still being sold for several million. When you take an arithmetic mean the value is dragged upwards by these outliers. So using an arithmetic mean, rather than a median, to describe "average" house prices and change is always going to give a near useless picture. Describing the same data in terms of medians would be more informative.

[David Collins]

Currently putting my flat on the market in Islington and met with several estate agents to discuss valuations. They are all valuing at a level similar to prices 12 months ago and, although the market is relatively quiet, there are buyers ready to buy.

[Angus Smith]

Other press show an annual rise in Scotland of +9% with average prices at £172K. Who is right?

[Martin Fletcher]

Estate Agents may not be entirely to blame for the house-price inflation/deflation situation in which we regularly find ourselves, but there is no doubt in my mind that a network of housing-linked professionals - agents + valuers / banks / building societies / tv pundits / private renting investors - have all contributed to the notion of the family home as an investment rather than a place to live. The result has been the greed/excitement/speculation/overreaching/panic/disillusionment/despair which has constituted the British housing market for the last 25 years.

My father taught me, from a very early age (he spent over 50 years doing conveyancing and house-purchase related legal work), that a house has no investment value unless you own more than one (preferably outright) - that you should never make your mortgage too high a proportion of your outgoings - and you always need somewhere to live.....so realising a profit is virtually impossible for most people.Rising house prices create an illusion of wealth for the majority.

Inheritance has tended to be where ownership has passed profit to the next generation. Nowadays the cost of social care has eroded the supposed 'sanctity' of inheritance of parental property. Instead of complaining about both of these issues, we should take the opportunity to generate a common understanding that house purchase is a utilitarian process and not a way to wealth. This should be taught in school alongside basic financial management and everyday health and social skills, as it is one of the most important areas of adult daily life management.

[ETS]

I am selling a very nice two bedroom flat in Cornwall. The reception is huge and over has two double bedrooms and bathrooms. In march we put the property on the market at 250k after seeking advice from three agents. In July we dropped it to 225K as there was no interest. The agent has now said that he does not think that he can get an offer above 200K. That is 25% since march. I think that we are not the only people getting no interest and believ that we will sell at at a 30% discount. Therefore please dont think the market has only fallen 10%. It will be at least 30% across all the country.

[David Quine]

Meaningless information.
Halifax and Nationwide often give the figures "for the month" several days before the end of the month! They often contradict each other!
Stick to Land Registry figures and then only within a specific price band and then only within a specific town, city or small geographic area.

[LouRoo]

According to this data, NI prices have dropped by a comparatively massive 20% I can see how that's true for developers and developments where they're trying to maintain turnover, but private sellers don't appear to be dropping prices - they seem to be waiting it out. And while property here was relatively cheap for a very long time, a lot of mid-priced property has gone up by more than double in the past few years - in that context, a 20% drop doesn't seem like a crisis, however much the red tops would like it to be.

[Phil]

Nice picture of Walmgate in York, trouble is most of this street are shops

[Martin]

Do the regional stats reflect what is happening on your street or are they wide of the mark?

Regional statistics are just as meaningless as the national ones. Even if you break the price fall/rise data into cities or towns, they are still meaningless. Most regions have cities or towns where people want to live, some that are run down and countryside. Similarly most towns have areas where people want to live, areas where people don't mind living and areas people don't want to live in. Averaging over all these types and over an area means that the regional (and national) stats will reflect the local stats in a proportion of areas, and will not reflect others, especially if they are highly desirable or highly undesirable.

[steve]

Dave Flint's right of course,the agents get the blame. Thats the price he pays for his commission. So why do vendors use agents? Because they dont want the responsibility, and ultimately the blame if it all goes wrong. You cant have it both ways folks, if you dont like agents dont use 'em, dont just use them and moan about them afterwards!

[Basil Bell]

David Jones, I understand your thinking but maybe the agent felt that telling people the price was only going to be reduced for a period of time before RAISING it again would just sound like he was trying to sell a sofa in a bank holiday weekend sale!! ITS NAFF!! You need to be one step ahead of the game make your house the cheapest of its kind in your area. The longer its on the market the less you can expect to get for it (unless you can wait 2 years when the one you want to buy would have gone up as well) GET REAL!!

[Chard Estate Agents]

I would agree that the land registry data is far more relvant than the Right Move data.

On a sales front, our own data shows that there have been pretty healthy gains in London over the past 12 months.

[dave flint]

Ignore Rightmove statistics. An average of Nartionwide, Halifax and Land Registry figures are far more accurate. Unrealistically high asking prices demanded by Sellers -NOT in most cases by Agents are fundamentally flawed statistics and unreliable. In addition as a former estate agent of over 30 years and in more recent times a Consultant Chartered Surveyor, I listen to the abuse heaped on Estate Agents. At this time it is "greedy" estate agents who are talking the market up at a time of falling prices, or are they forcing prices down to ensure they make a fee even if it means their client's property being reduced significantly to ensure a fee. Lets get it straight once and for all. Sellers are the people who determine the price, I used to spend hours advising clients what the correct price should be INMO, only to be TOLD what price to ask. Those most "honourable" of sellers who invariably were the most vicious in their attacks on Agents were often the instigators of the worst cases of gazumping and of course they blamed the Estate Agents, who achieve a £200 fee increase for a whole pile of work and abuse whilst the "innocent "seller trousers £20,000. Think about it!

[Lara K]

I live in Northampton where the housing market is in fee fall. The local estate agents do their best to talk the market up, but the reality is that nothing but the keenest priced properties are selling - and when they do sell their discounted down a further 10% from the asking price.

The area as whole is vastly over priced so I would imagine prices falling by a further 30 to 40% before buyers return.

[david jones]

I put my house on the market some time ago. It is in Balham, London. I recently asked the agent to reduce the price TEMPORARILY to stimulate interest, but to restore it to the full price in october, and suggested that the customer base be informed of the temporary nature of the reduction, otherwise they will regard it as the first in a series of reductions. In his wisdom he refused to do so. There has been more interest, but no offers. Stupid estate agent or what?

[Bob Macdonald]

It is clear that the UK housing market will return to being a bifarcated market. London prices will hold and London will remain an over-priced toilet, while the rest of the country's housing will go through the floor (better reflecting their economic and social prospects). It's all very 28 Days Later!

[ColinB]

What is the point of showing Rightmove's asking price data as though it were in any way an authoritative take on current house prices? We know that houses presently advertised are not moving,either because would-be purchasers cannot get a mortgage, or because vendors are still in denial, and loathe to drop their prices. Either way, the gold standard for house prices must be the Land Registry data, even if they are three months out-of-date; the Halifax and other indices that report sale (not asking) prices give a hint of what's still to come. Rightmove's data on the nation's wishful thinking ought really to have no place in the mainstream media.