ANALYSIS: Latest property price performance by country
Kate Faulkner reviews the latest indices on property price performance across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a special focus on Scotland.
Property price performance of the different countries has hardly changed for the last 12 months, with rises a little more subdued year-on-year according to both the Land Registry and Nationwide data.
That said, the market is still holding up incredibly well, with property price rises in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland higher than the long-term average year on year.
England’s average is misleading though, as the ‘lower than long-term average’ rise of 2.3% versus 3% since 2005 doesn’t reflect what’s truly happening – London and those areas in the South and East are struggling with mortgage rates and hitting affordability buffers, while areas in the Midlands and North perform much better.
Country market performance commentary
– Asking prices rose month-on-month in every English region, Wales and Scotland. The more affordable markets continue to lead, consistent with stretched affordability steering demand northward.
– The North and West Lead: Annual growth is strongest in Wales (+3.3%), Scotland (+3.1%) and the North West of England (+2.7%).
– Northern Ireland continues to record the strongest annual house price growth in the UK.. Average prices are up +7. 4% over the past year to £229,000.
– Scotland has the next highest annual growth, now at +3. 9%, with an average price of £ 223,277 .
– In Wales, property price growth has strengthened again to +0. 9% on an annual basis, taking the typical home value to £ 231,142.
– In England, stronger price growth remains concentrated in northern regions.
– Sales are down 3-6% in northern England and Scotland, where affordability pressures are lower.
– Sales are down 10%+ in parts of Wales, the South West, the East of England and the East Midlands.
– House prices are rising at 3.5% across the North East and North West and at 3.0% in Scotland, where supply remains tight.
– Prices are likely to remain more resilient in the North of England and Scotland
– Northern Ireland was again the exception, with price growth continuing to outpace the rest of the UK by a wide margin. Indeed, at 8.6% the rate of annual price growth was around four times faster than the 2.2% recorded in the UK as a whole (in Q2), where the strong performance echoes the trend seen in the border regions of Ireland. This persistently strong performance has resulted in a deterioration in housing affordability in the region, in contrast with the UK average, which has generally been improving.
– Scotland and Wales both saw a slight pickup in annual house price growth in Q2 to 3.5%, while England also saw an acceleration, albeit to a modest 1.5%, from 0.9% in Q1.
Norther Ireland focus
According to Nationwide’s tracking of first-time-buyer affordability: “The mortgage payment on a typical first-time buyer property in Northern Ireland is now equivalent to 31% of an average earner’s take-home pay, up from 24% in Q2 2022 – although this is still lower than the UK average of 33% (see chart below).
“Moreover, the price of a typical home in Northern Ireland is now around 80% of the average UK price, up from 70% in Q1 2024, but still well below the peak of 125% recorded in 2007.”
Special report on Scotland
The latest HPI for Scotland from Registers of Scotland shows the average price of a property in May 2026 was £196,000, an increase of 4.4% when compared to May 2025.
Compared to the previous month, house prices in Scotland increased by 1.5% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, whilst on a seasonally adjusted basis there was an increase of 1.0%.
The volume of residential sales in Scotland in March 2026 was 7,655. When compared with the first published figures for March 2025, this was an annual increase of 2.1%.
This performance breaks down a lot when you look at houses versus flats, with flats being incredible value versus a home in today’s market.
And you can see from the image below, apart from Aberdeen, property prices are not being held back at all – “The largest increases were in Moray and South Ayrshire where the average prices increased by 10.7% to £210,000 and £171,000 respectively. The largest decrease was recorded in the City of Aberdeen, where the average price decreased by 3.3% to £135,000.”
