In the main, property prices by city are showing some huge differences and continue to show a North/South divide, with the likes of Bradford, Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne seeing the higher price rises while the likes of Brighton and Hove, London and Tunbridge Wells are seeing small increases.

The exception to this is Aberdeen, which has been suffering from the falling price of oil in the last ten years. Due to the Trump Trade Wars, this isn’t likely to improve their property market anytime soon.

At the 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home buying and selling process, and the Land Registry data, which is anything from a few months to six months or more out of date.

Looking at the Cities index this month, price changes range from -2.3% down for Aberdeen, according to Land Registry, to 1.9% down from Hometrack’s report. Belfast, Edinburgh, and Bradford were the top performers.

With inflation at around 2.8% year on year, six cities aren’t seeing prices rise in excess of inflation from the Land Registry index, while most cities, according to the Hometrack index, are growing at less than inflation.

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.