UK house prices bumped up by 'increased immigration'
24dash.com
Publisher: Jon Land
Published: 12/10/2006 – 10:19:34 AM
'Increased immigration' bumping up UK house prices
House prices rise for 11th consecutive month
The average UK house price has been bumped up to almost 170,000 as a result of a good economy and increased immigration, figures released today showed.
Nationwide said that the annual rate of house price inflation in the UK had increased to 6.9% in the third quarter of this year, up from 4.8% in the second quarter, with the typical house now costing 168,460.
London led the way in England with house prices up 7.3% year-on-year, with the average cost of a home in the capital at 259,646, according to the quarterly review.
But Northern Ireland experienced the greatest hikes, with house prices up by 33.4% in the last twelve months to 159,859.
Scotland also maintained strong growth, with house price inflation running at 15.2% according to the quarterly report.
But the Welsh housing market underperformed, with house prices up 4.6% annually, below the UK average.
Figures showed that the south of England continued to outstrip the north in house price increases, with the annual rate of growth in southern regions set at 6.2% compared with a northern figure of 3.8%
Fionnuala Earley, group economist at Nationwide, said: “House prices increased in every region of the UK over the last twelve months, supported by robust economic conditions and high levels of immigration.”
Ed Stansfield, property economist at Capital Economics, said: “Job creation in the UK is still good and the economy is still growing and on top of that you have got immigration running at a very high level.
“Although newly-arrived immigrants do not go straight down to the estate agents to buy, they do need to be housed somewhere and it has a knock-on effect.”
