Some regional house price rises now unsustainable says website Home

The property website Home is warning that some regional house price rises are unsustainable.

It says that prices in the East of England are rising faster than anywhere else in the UK at 13.9 per cent in the year to June - far outstripping London and “raising concerns about the sustainability of this property market.”

The website’s latest asking price index - calculated from analysis of around 500,000 homes for sale - suggests that the East of England’s average asking price has risen more than twice as fast as the 6.6 per cent recorded for England and Wales as a whole. 

Scotland asking prices increased an average of 6.7 per cent over the same period, while Greater London rose 7.0 per cent and the South East 7.8 per cent.

Asking price figures for May and June this year provide further evidence of how the East of England has become the UK’s hottest market, the site suggests. Over this period, the region’s average asking price rose by 1.6 per cent while London’s fell by 0.4 per cent and prices in the South East rose only 0.2 per cent.

Properties are also selling faster in the East of England than in any other region. 

The typical time on the market for homes in the East of England in June is 54 days, compared to 80 days across England and Wales and 62 days in London.

Lack of supply is a key factor in these regional variations in asking price. 

There was an 8.0 per cent fall in supply of property in the East of England between May 2015 and May 2016. Over the same period, the UK-wide fall in supply was 7.0 per cent. 

In contrast, between May 2015 and May 2016, the supply of property rose in Greater London by 2.0 per cent and in the South East by 1.0 per cent.