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 Manchester, Cambridge, London, Bristol and Brighton and Hove.

With the exception of Edinburgh and Oxford, 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 price growth ‘on average’ are performing below inflation: Newcastle upon Tyne, Aberdeen, Belfast, Southampton and Liverpool. 

Comparing long term changes to what’s happening today to some of the ‘top performers’ over time is interesting. While Belfast is one of the top performers today according to the Land Registry, long term, prices haven’t kept up with inflation.

In contrast, of our lower performers, Brighton and Hove is struggling just now, but long term it’s beaten inflation, meanwhile Aberdeen hasn’t performed long term, nor is it doing well at the moment.

At city level, we have two main sources of data: Hometrack which is around six weeks into the home buying and selling process and the Land Registry data which is anything from a few months to six months or more out of date.

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.