Region is housing cold spot
The West Midlands is one of the "cold spots" for house price increases in the United Kingdom, according to an influential survey out today.
Every region in the country has seen house prices grow in the last three months, but the pace of growth is slowing. In Birmingham, prices have gone up just three per cent in the last quarter. That compares to the last decade when they have soared by 212 per cent.
And according to the Nationwide report the average house in the city is now worth £182,232.
In fact the "second city" comes in at number three on the "coolest" list, compared with Belfast being the "hottest" with an average house price of £300,229.
The average house price in Staffordshire is now £165,882, up four per cent in the last three months.
The report also details increases over the past 12 months, with prices in the West Midlands going up 5.9 per cent compared with 54 per cent in Northern Ireland and 15.7 per cent in London.
Nationwide's chief economist Fionnuala Earley said the gap between the north and south had clearly widened in the second three months of this year.
"House price growth in the south outpaced that in the north by 5.6 percentage points in that period. Within England, London saw the fastest pace of growth by a considerable margin.
"In fact annual growth in London outpaced the average for England as a whole by 6.1 percentage points," she explained.
"The regions surrounding the capital all showed double-digit price growth – perhaps indicating some ripple effects from London's strengths," she continued.
"Although the quarterly pace of house price inflation in London slowed from 4.5 per cent to 3.1 per cent, the annual pace of growth accelerated from 14.3 per cent to 15.7 per cent," she added.
