As much as the media talk about national and country averages, this data misses the most important house price information: what’s happening at city level and below.

For country and regional property price averages, we are seeing a few small percentage falls or rises. However, at city level, the ranges are a lot more stark, with Glasgow topping the charts with house price growth at 7.7% while in Brighton and Hove, they have fallen by 4.1% (although this data from the Land Registry is several months behind the likes of Hometrack, which is around six weeks into the buying and selling process).

Out of the 30 cities we track via the Land Registry, since 2005, property prices have only risen above the average annual 3.8% inflation rate in five cities/towns. These include:

1. Manchester
2. Cambridge
3. Bristol
4. London
5. Brighton and Hove

With the exception of Edinburgh, where prices have risen at the same rate as inflation over time, the remaining towns and cities we track actually show that property prices, in many areas, have risen at less than inflation.

The following towns and cities house price growth ‘on average’ are performing below inflation:

1. Newcastle upon Tyne
2. Aberdeen
3. Belfast
4. Southampton
5. Liverpool

Appendix: City/town property indices price tracking

For city/town tracking, we use Land Registry (government data) and Zoopla/Hometrack. The Land Registry data is useful because we can analyse how property prices have changed over time and this helps us to put today’s price information into context.

The Zoopla/Hometrack data is useful as they take into account the change in mix of property transactions during the pandemic to houses away from flats. This has meant the likes of the Land Registry and other indices have over exaggerated price changes year on year.