The average house price In England and Wales has broken through the £300,000 barrier for the first time.
According to the latest Your Move house price index, the average price of a home in England and Wales went up by £1,029 to reach £300,169 – a new market high.
Oliver Blake, managing director of Your Move and Reeds Rains estate agents, said: “It’s been a confident start to the year from the housing market.
“Following a strong December, the performance in January shows a market whose resilience continues to defy the doubters.”
Prices are now almost £10,000 higher than in January last year, when the average was £291,165.
Despite the slump following the financial crisis, prices have doubled since they topped £150,000 in 2002.
London is now off the bottom of the table for growth with prices rising 0.3% for the month and 1.3% for the year – taking the value of the average home to £598,001.
That’s largely the result of strong growth in cheaper areas as buyers search for value or affordability. Barking and Dagenham, where average prices of £301,572 are almost half the London average, saw prices rise 13.6% annually.
Waltham Forest and Redbridge, again with prices well below average, also saw double-digit growth of 11.3% and 10.8%, respectively.
The biggest fall was in the North East, with prices dropping 0.3% in December to finish effectively flat over the last twelve months.
Every other region of the country has seen prices grow in the last 12 months, led still by the East, where the average price edged up a further 0.1% in the month to finish 7.1% up on last December.
The region was supported by strong growth in the last year in Luton (up 10.1%), Thurrock (up 11%) and Southend-on-Sea (up 14.7%), which also saw among the strongest monthly growth at 2.9%.
Other top performing regions included the South East, increasing 4.9% annually with double digit growth in Medway and Portsmouth and the East Midlands, where Rutland saw growth of 12.4% over the year and the region as a whole increased by 4.5%.
