Prices rose by 8.8% and 8.0% in the year to Manchester and Birmingham respectively after strong quarterly rises of 3.4% and 3.5%.
Manchester and Birmingham are the UK’s fastest growing cities based on house price inflation, Hometrack’s UK Cities House Price Index has revealed.
Prices rose by 8.8% and 8.0% in the year to Manchester and Birmingham respectively after strong quarterly rises of 3.4% and 3.5%.
House prices now average £153,600 in Manchester and £150,900 in Birmingham.
Richard Donnell, insight director at Hometrack, said: “Buyers outside the South of England appear to be shrugging off concerns over Brexit and a squeeze on real incomes to take advantage of low mortgage rates.
“This is shifting the dynamics of the housing market. Cities that have been driving house price growth over the last 2-3 years, such as London and Cambridge, are now seeing a significant slowdown while large regional cities continue to register robust and sustained levels of house price growth.”
The biggest mover on a quarterly basis was Edinburgh which saw prices rise by 4.5%. Its annual level of growth now stands at 7.1%.
The only major city to see house prices fall was Aberdeen, with a year-on-year decrease of 8.7%.
The top university cities of Cambridge and Oxford saw modest annual growth of 1.7% and 3.7%.
Donnell added: “The announcement of the General Election may create some short-term uncertainty although comparing the profile of sales volumes between election years and non-election years there is no material difference.
“Compared to the level of uncertainty over Brexit, it is debateable whether the election will really make a material difference to buyers’ decision in the next two months. In our view the current market trends appear well set for the rest of 2017 where above average growth in regional cities offsets weak, single digit increases in southern cities.”
