Q When is an 89p brick worth £121? A When it’s part of a London house

IT’S enough to make anyone think twice about buying a house.

Soaring property prices mean the average brick in a UK house is worth more than £47, based on the property’s overall value.

This same brick would have cost £35.70 in 2006, meaning the price has risen a third over the past decade, research has found.

Variations in house prices mean each brick making up a typical London property is worth £121.08, while a single brick in a home in Belfast is worth £22.09 on average, according to the research for Barclays Mortgages.

The report, by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, used house price data from the Office for National Statistics as well as calculating the average number of bricks in a property within each of the areas analysed.

It also used its own house price forecasts to predict the changing value of a brick by 2020. The study said a brick helping to hold up a property is worth £47.44, more than 50 times the cost of one sitting in a DIY shop – which is around 89p.

Researchers said the average brick in a home in Oxford is worth £ 95.50 and one in Glasgow is worth £22.55. The values were £27.19 and £25.87 in Nottingham and Liverpool respectively.

A brick in a property in York is worth £40.11, while one in Ply- mouth is £32.56, one in Bristol is worth £47.24 and one in Cardiff is valued at around £37.57.

Despite the uncertainty in the economy following the Brexit vote, the CEBR predicts that a brick in an average UK home will be worth £58.69 by 2020.

But in London, Cambridge and Oxford, the figure is expected to be nearly £150 by that year.

Raheel Ahmed, head of Barclays Mortgages, said: ‘It is particularly interesting to see the regions and cities outside of London which are experiencing significant growth in house prices.

‘While a north-south divide does remain, cities such as Sheffield, Nottingham and Leicester are experiencing strong growth, and this is forecast to continue through to 2020.’