In Focus: Advising on mortgages  

House prices experience largest annual fall in 14 years

“The UK housing market is currently at risk of a crash, and with another base rate hike largely expected at the end of this month, house prices are set to take another hit.”

Regional differences

The index also found that all UK nations and the nine English regions registered a decline in house prices over the last year, especially in the north.

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The region that experienced the biggest drop was the south east with house prices falling by 5 per cent to an average of £379,565.

The index attributed this fall to buyers needing to find larger deposits and fund larger monthly repayments.

Wales, which recorded some of the biggest gains in property prices during the pandemic-driven race for space, saw property prices fall by 4.7 per cent over the last year.

The slowest pace of decline was recorded in Scotland where property prices fell by 0.6 per cent points to an average price of £201,932.

London remained the most expensive region in the UK to purchase a home, with an average property price of £529,814.

However with prices down by 4.1 per cent over the last year, London saw the biggest fall of any region in cash terms (a fall of £22,777).

tom.dunstan@ft.com

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