UK house prices rise fastest in Woking and Falkirk in 2011

Saturday, 31 December 2011 09:49

Woking in Surrey is the town in the UK that recorded the largest increase in the value of property in the UK in 2011, according to the Halifax Town House Price Survey of the UK.

The town recorded a massive 16 per cent increase with the average home now worth £299,654, up from £257,590. Woking is a large town within easy commuting distance of London.

House prices across the UK have been fairly stagnant in 2011, which is why the large increase in property prices in Woking is surprising. Falkirk in Scotland is second on the list of UK towns that have seen the largest increases, with a 12 per cent increase.

Both Woking and Inverness are towns with good transport links close to big cities with good jobs, indicating that in 2011 links to big cities proved a major upward influence on house prices.

Ipswich, Inverness and Portsmouth make up the top five towns in terms of increases in average house prices. Beyond this, no town has seen more than a six per cent increase in the value of property in 2011, providing further evidence of the relatively flat housing market in the UK.

Overall 28 per cent of the 130 towns surveyed recorded price increases.

Kettering in Northamptonshire and Dunfermline in Scotland were the two towns that suffered the biggest drops in property values, both recording a 15 per cent fall.

Nine of the ten worst performing towns came from outside of southern England, indicating that the property market in the UK declined more in the rest of the UK than in southern England.

The exception was Ashford in Kent where the average home fell in value by 13 per cent from £215,862 to £188,001.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, said: "There have been significant differences in performance in towns across the country. The two towns recording the biggest rises are both within easy commuting distance of major commercial centres. In contrast, the majority of towns that have fared worst in house price terms are outside southern England where economic conditions have tended to be less favourable.

"Uncertainty around the economy is unusually high as we go into the New Year. This makes it especially difficult to predict the course of house prices over the next 12 months. Overall, we expect broad stability in house prices nationally during 2012.”

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