‘A rollercoaster year’ for housing market in Wales
PROPERTY prices are on the rise again in Wales. According to the latest Government house price index data, all property types in Wales showed an increase in average prices in September 2019 when compared with the same month last year.
The average price of a property in Wales in September was £164,433, up 2.6% from the previous year.
Flats and maisonettes showed the biggest increase, rising by 4% in the year to September 2019 to £118,000.
The smallest increase was for terraced houses, with a rise of 1.7% in the year to September 2019 to £127,000.
It wasn’t all good news – in some areas the property market was flat, with averages showing a small decrease in price.
To see how your property might have changed in the past 12 months, we have compared prices in 2019 with those in 2018 to see which county has experienced the biggest rises in house values.
Surprisingly, the county of Gwynedd comes out top, being the only region in our analysis which saw an increase in values across the board, no matter what house type.
Flats saw the biggest jump in value, increasing by nearly a third in just 12 months. Semi-detached homes increased by 10% so average prices, as at September 2019, were £194k. Terraced houses showed the smallest increase at just 3%.
Boasting a picturesque coastline and dramatic mountains, some locations in Gwynedd are highly sought after. Seaside villages like Abersoch and Aberdyfi – where most locals are priced out of the housing market – are particularly popular, said Dafydd Hardy, owner of Dafydd Hardy estate agents in Gwynedd.
In Aberdyfi, a quaint west coast fishing village, “affordable” two bedroom cottages are on the market for £200,000. That is nearly 10 times the average wage in the county.
Almost 40% of the homes sold in Gwynedd last year were second homes.
Mr Hardy said Gwynedd was characterised by low volumes and high prices in some areas such as Abersoch, which could skew the results.
He said it had been a “rollercoaster” year for the property market as general confidence had suffered due to Brexit and the outcome of the recent General Election.
“I expect we will see a busy first six months in 2010, now that we have a more certain outcome,” he said. “We do also suffer one of the lowesr volume of new developments here in Gwynedd compared to the rest of Wales, which pushes prices up too.”
He added: “There is talk of interest rates going up to 3.5% by 2021, so that could have an impact on prices further down the line.”
Pembrokeshire, another county famous for its coastline and sandy beaches, also saw property prices jump by up to 17% for terraced homes over the past year, while detached properties reported a more modest increase of 5%.
Our analysis used house price reports from home.co.uk and compared the median average house price for September 2018 to September 2019 (the most up-to-date figures).
In 2019, house prices in Wales dropped by 2.8% between August and September, compared to a fall of 0.5% for the same period last year.
This could well have been due to the time of year as people went on holiday or because purchasers put off making a decision to move while political uncertainties prevailed.
Therefore, the figures offer a rough guide only and provide a general view on trends across Wales.
Cardiff and Swansea, both experienced very little change in house prices over the 12-month period, with detached properties demonstrating a decrease in value of 4% and 13%, respectively. There was a drop in flat prices in both cities, too. Further east, Newport saw an increase in flat prices of 17% compared to last year, perhaps bought about by the scrapping of the Severn Bridge tolls, while prices of semis, detached and terraced properties stagnated.
The analysis is influenced by the number of properties sold in September, with some regions omitted because there were simply not enough sales to derive reliable results.
In Merthyr Tydfil, the number of homes sold in September was low, but there was a general decline in house values, with semis dropping by 31% and terraced homes by 15%.
There was little to be cheerful about for homeowners in Carmarthenshire, too, as values generally decreased, although detached properties went up slightly by 4% on average.
The average price for a detached home in the largely rural county was £268,577 as of September 2019.
It was a similar story in Powys, with little change in house prices since September 2018. There, the average price for a detached home is £284k.
The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that UK house prices rose at their lowest annual rate in over seven years, with property values increasing by 0.7% over the year to October to £233,000 on average, the lowest growth since September 2012.
In Wales, homeowners can be cautiously optimistic as Welsh house prices grew faster than the UK annual rate of 1.3% in the year to September 2019.
Global real estate firm Savills has forecast strong house price growth of 18% in Wales over the next five years, which would make it one of the fastest growing markets in the UK.
Out of all 22 local authority areas, Conwy and Pembrokeshire showed the strongest growth, rising by 7.9% to £172,000 and 7.8% to £182,000 in the year to September 2019.
As with other indicators in the housing market, which typically fluctuate from month to month, it is important not to put too much weight on one month’s set of house price data.