A new survey has revealed the towns and cities where property prices have rebounded most strongly following the peak of the last housing boom in 2007 and the subsequent crash.
The survey, by Hometrack, looks at 20 towns and cities across the UK and has produced some surprising results.
Many people would immediately assume house prices in London had shown the best ‘bounce’ since 2007, but that’s not the case. Surprisingly, the capital is beaten in to third place by Belfast and Cambridge.
House prices in Belfast have risen by over 50% since their peak in 2007, whilst Cambridge is 32% higher.
In eleven of the cities surveyed house prices are still below their peak of 2007, with only Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bristol, Aberdeen and Oxford, as well as the top three cities already mentioned, seeing growth since 2007.
Many major cities, including Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh are still well below their peak of 2007 and could take some time to bridge this gap, especially if house price growth starts to slow.
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Annual house price rises
The Hometrack survey also looked at the rate of house price growth over the past year.
Unsurprisingly London tops this chart, with a reported increase of 18.1% over the past year; Cambridge and Bristol are in second and third place with rises of 17.9% and 14.1% respectively.
All of the towns and cities included in the survey reported price rises. Although the ‘relegation zone’ includes Aberdeen and Glasgow, which saw more modest increases of 5.3% and 4.3%, perhaps dampened by uncertainty over the Scottish referendum.
Commenting on the figures, Richard Donnelll, Director of Research at Hometrack, said: “The overall rate of UK house price growth has been significantly enhanced by London, so we are starting to see a corresponding dip in the rate of growth in the national figures as the rate of growth slows in London.”