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home buying and selling process, and the Land Registry data, which is anything from a few months to six months or more out of date.

Year-on-year house price growth across UK cities shows mixed signals, depending on which index you follow – highlighting just how volatile and regionally specific the market is right now.

The Land Registry is reporting significant price increases in several urban markets, particularly, Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool, Bradford, Milton Keynes and Belfast.

These sharp increases may be influenced by lagging data reflecting the rush to complete before the temporary Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) relief ended.

In contrast, Hometrack’s city price index is seeing more modest and consistent growth, with most cities recording year-on-year gains around 3%. This aligns more closely with current buyer sentiment and market activity post-SDLT changes and interest rate stabilisation.

Interestingly, both datasets agree that cities in the North of England and Scotland outperform their southern counterparts, with Milton Keynes being a notable exception in the South.

Aberdeen continues to stand out for the wrong reasons – property prices are now back to 2006 levels and with inflation up 68% since 2006, this represents a significant real-terms loss for homeowners and investors.

Aberdeen’s ongoing struggles underscore the importance of regional economic drivers, such as the oil and gas sector, when assessing long-term performance.

How are city property prices performing versus inflation over the long term?

House price performance across UK cities continues to vary, but the real picture becomes clearer when inflation and wage growth are factored in. According to the latest Land Registry and Hometrack data, most cities are technically rising in price year-on-year, but real-terms growth is limited or negative in many areas.

Out of the 30 cities/towns we track monthly, according to Land Registry, only Aberdeen is seeing property prices lower than in 2024, while Hometrack reports that Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Brighton and Hove are just slightly down year on year, while Peterborough and Southampton prices are on a par.

Bearing in mind that inflation is running at over 3% this year, this does mean that, in real terms, property prices are falling. According to Hometrack, just over 20 towns/cities are rising in price – but doing so at less than 3.5%

With wages rising more than 5% YoY on average, this does mean that even though interest rates are likely to fall more this year, with property prices being quite reasonable and plenty of choice available, now might be a great time to buy, if the property is affordable, even though buyers may pay a slightly higher mortgage rate.

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.