All UK regions see house prices rise in third quarter
House prices rose in all regions during the third quarter of 2009, according to the Nationwide Building Society.Commenting on the figures Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide's Chief Economist, said:
"The third quarter saw a continued improvement in house price trends across all UK regions, but especially in the South East, South West and Northern Ireland. Whilst the annual rates of change are still negative across all UK regions, most regions saw a substantial improvement this quarter. Indeed all regions saw an increase in prices between the second quarter and third quarter. For the UK as a whole, prices rose by 3.7% in the third quarter, leading to an increase in the annual rate of change from -11.7% in the second quarter to -3.0%.
"House prices in Greater London rose by a seasonally adjusted 3.8% in the third quarter of 2009. This increase pushed the annual rate of change up from -10.2% to -1.9%. New buyer interest appears to have increased significantly in recent months but the supply of property for sale continues to be very limited, thus helping to support prices in the capital.
"Within England, the strongest performance was seen in the South West, where prices rose by 4.9% over the quarter and the annual rate of change moved up from -13.2% to -1.6%. The Outer South East and Outer Metropolitan regions continued to see fairly strong improvements, with prices rising 4.1% and 4.7% in the quarter respectively. The East & West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside saw weaker growth in the quarter, and along with the North and North West, have weaker annual rates of change than southern England.
"House prices in Scotland rose 3.4% during the quarter, similar to the UK average. The annual rate of change improved from -10.1% to -1.0%, making Scotland the best performing region (on an annual basis) in the third quarter. In contrast to the second quarter, Wales saw the weakest quarterly price increase of any UK region at just 0.1% in the third quarter. However, short-term price movements in Wales have historically been very volatile, and the weaker increase this quarter should be seen in the context of the relatively large increase of 7.6% in the second quarter. On an annual basis, house prices in Wales fell by 3.5%, a modest improvement from the 6.2% year-on-year decline last quarter.
"At 9.7% quarter-on-quarter, Northern Ireland saw the strongest house price growth of all UK regions over the last three months. The increase represents the first rise in eight quarters and a substantial improvement from the 4.3% quarter-on-quarter fall seen in the second quarter. However, Northern Ireland has experienced by far the largest peak-to-trough fall in prices across the regions, with prices down 35% from their 2007 Q3 level. On an annual basis, house prices in the province are still down 8.0%, although this is substantially smaller than the 26.0% year-on-year fall in the second quarter.”