According to Right Move, the UK’s largest estate agent, the average asking price for a property in the UK has now risen to £252,978; 1.2% higher than this time last month.
Right Move’s latest figures also indicate that the rise in property prices experienced by the South East over the past few months is now spreading to the rest of the UK.
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Unsurprisingly London has the highest asking prices, with the average house being put on the market for £515,243. The wider South East region has shown the largest asking price increase, up by over 14% since the start of the year.
However, asking prices in the rest of the UK have also risen, with the North showing a rise of 9.2%.
House price caution
Before would-be sellers get too carried away by the latest figures, housing experts are quick to point out that these are only average asking prices. Furthermore, they are significantly higher than the average house sale price given by either the Halifax, Nationwide or Land Registry, all of whom produce house price surveys and estimate the value of the average home to be in the region of £165,000.
However, what is clear is that government initiatives, such as the Funding for Lending scheme and the recently launched Help to Buy scheme, are beginning to have a positive impact on the housing market, with confidence slowly being restored and filtering through to asking prices at least.
Reacting to the figures, Miles Shipside, Director of Right Move, said: “The first half of 2013 saw little sign of the traditional north-south divide, with the first-half asking price surge in the North almost equal to that of the South. This indicates a wider upturn, albeit at historically low but increasing volumes.”
Shipside continued: “The bad news for would-be buyers is that it has helped propel the average price of a property coming to market through the quarter of a million quid milestone for the first time.”
