Average house prices up £5,889 in past year
THE average house price in Wales has increased by almost £6,000 in the last year, new figures show today.
The latest Principality House Price Index for Wales has the average house price in Wales at £176,316, an increase of £5,889 or 3.5% over the past 12 months.
The average house price beats the record set in March 2017, and shows a rise following a slight dip in the second quarter of the year.
Tom Denman, chief finance officer at Principality Building Society, said: “We saw a clear bounce back in the housing market across Wales as people continue to take advantage of favourable low interest rates and high employment.
“There are record levels of firsttime buyers across the UK and it is clear that while areas such as London are seeing a drop in house prices, the Welsh market has been stable.
“However, sluggish wage growth and the Bank of England’s broad hints that it will increase interest rates in November means there is still a sense of caution that the market will continue the modest growth we have seen during the past couple of years.”
Nineteen local authorities have seen a rise in annual house-price growth over the last year, while eight of the 22 local authorities have seen a fall in house-price growth during the last quarter.
The prices in Wales have increased in each month of this last quarter, as first-time buyers and home-movers continued to take advantage of the low rates of interest available on home loans. Transactions during the first six months of this year have been the highest of the past five years, save for March 2016 when there was a surge of property purchases ahead of the introduction of the 3% surcharge in stamp duty on second homes and buy-to-let properties.
Housing sales slowed in July 2017, against trend, but the Principality report puts this down to possibly being caused by a sense of uncertainty at the time of the general election in June. Sales rebounded in August to the highest level since August 2007, but appear to have fallen to a lower rate in September 2017.
Only three regions saw a decline in annual growth; Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil and Newport. The biggest climbers were Pembrokeshire, Bridgend and Anglesey.
Earlier this month the Welsh Government announced details of the Welsh Land Transaction Tax.
There will be no stamp duty on primary properties up to £150,000 to try to encourage first-time buyers to get on to the property ladder.
However, stamp duty will increase up to £17,500 for sales of homes that cost between £400,000 and £925,000, which the reports states could result in a slowdown of sales at that end of the market.