The last time this occurred was in the first quarter of 1999. During the same period overall house prices are up 125 per cent.
Coatbridge in Strathclyde is Great Britain's top property hotspot with a 36 per cent rise in prices over the past year. Average prices in Coatbridge are up from £81,171 in 2004 quarter three to £110,604 in 2005 quarter three.
Scottish and Welsh towns dominated the top ten with seven and two towns respectively in the list. The other top ten town is Wednesbury in the West Midlands. Port Talbot (35%), Inverurie (32%), Lochgelly (31%) and Irvine (31%), along with Coatbridge, make up the top five. Three of the Scottish towns in the top ten are in Strathclyde, while three are in Fife.
All ten towns delivering the strongest price rises over the past year continue to have average house prices below the national average.
At a county level, Grampian (15%) has seen the biggest price rises over the last year. It was followed closely by the Highlands, Gwynedd and Fife, all which are up by 14%. There are six counties in Scotland and two counties in Wales amongst the ten counties UK-wide recording the biggest price gains in the last 12 months.
23 counties have seen a modest fall (an average of 3%) in prices over the past year with all these counties being in southern England and the midlands. Six of the 10 counties recording the biggest falls are in the South East, two are in the South West and one each in the East Midlands and West Midlands. The biggest house price falls over the past year have been in Hertfordshire (-6%), and Surrey, Somerset, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Dorset (all –5%).
The gap between prices in the north and south has narrowed to its lowest level in eight years. The average price in the south stood at 1.58 times the average in the north in 2005 Quarter 3 compared with a recent peak of 2.19 times in 2002 Quarter 2. The north/south divide, however, remains wider than it was ten years' ago when the average price in the south was only 1.38 times the average in the north.
The differential between the average price in the south and its equivalent in the north has narrowed by £8,000 over the past year with prices in the south £79,000 higher than in the north in 2005 Quarter 3. This is £20,000 lower than in early 2003 when the north/south differential stood at a record £99,000 (2003 Quarter 1).
All regions of Great Britain had annual house price growth of less than 10% in 2005 Quarter 3. The last time this occurred was in 1999 Quarter 1. The biggest gains in house prices over the past year have been in the North West (9.1%) and Yorkshire & the Humber (8.0%). Four regions have experienced small falls during the last 12 months: East Midlands (-0.4%), East Anglia (-0.8%), South East (-1.1%) and South West (-1.5%).
