Top housing hotspots named
THE North East of England emerged today as home to four of the UK's top ten property hotspots.
Hartlepool, Cleveland, saw the biggest house price rise with an increase of 59% in the past year, while in Darlington, County Durham, they leapt 58%, Britain's biggest mortgage lender Halifax said.
The average price of a house in Hartlepool is now £109,068 compared with just £68,669 a year ago. Stockton-on-Tees, also in Cleveland, and South Shields, in Tyne and Wear, also made the top 10, with respective price rises of 44% and 40%.
At the same time, Halifax reported a significant slowdown in the South, with house price inflation falling from 19% to 9% in London and from 26% to 7% in the South East.
There were also falls in the annual rate of increase in East Anglia, the South West, the West Midlands and the East Midlands. None of the top 10 hotspots was in the South.
Swansea in south Wales saw the third biggest increase (55%) while Blackburn, Lancs, was fourth with a rise of 51%.
The figures compare prices for the first quarter of 2004 with those for the same period last year.
They show that the average house price in London is now just over twice as much as its equivalent in the North, with the gap in prices at its narrowest since early in 1999.
In Yorkshire and the Humber the average house now costs £106,421, making it the last English region to reach the average price landmark of more than £100,000.
Scotland and Northern Ireland are yet to reach this threshold, with average prices still at £85,212 and £93,692 respectively.
Overall, the biggest prices increases in the last year were in the North (36%), Wales (36%), the North West (30%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (28%).
But Halifax chief economist Martin Ellis predicted price rises in many areas outside the South were set to slow down.
'The top 10 property hotspots are all outside the South, with towns in the North East featuring heavily amongst them,' Mr Ellis said.
'We expect the gap between the North and South to narrow further during the remainder of 2004, although house price inflation in many areas outside the South is likely to slow.'
Top ten UK hotspots
