House Prices

The disparate nature of house prices across the different regions of England and Wales is illustrated in Table 1 below.

For example, it shows that in the lowest value wards of North East England, the average sale price of housing in the year to the end of June 2013 was marginally above £70,000, whilst in the most expensive markets of that region the average sale price was just below £250,000.

By contrast, the average sale price in the least expensive areas of London was just over £190,000 and in the highest value areas over £1.1m.

The disparity between the highest value housing markets of London and the rest of the country is huge. Even in the most expensive markets of the South East the average sale price is 45% lower than the equivalent markets in the capital at around £650,000.

The gap between the most and next most expensive markets of London is similarly wide reflecting a prime London housing market where pricing is set by a different set of factors to the rest of the market.

What are the key factors that explain this? Size of housing, its type, the basis of occupation or the socio-economic profile of the inhabitants? How is this changing the way we occupy property?

Our key findings are summarised in the next section, followed by a more detailed analysis of key drivers.

Methodology

Within the document we have looked at the disparity between house prices in each of the regions of England and Wales and the reasons why those disparities exist having regard to:

■ the size and type of housing;

■ the basis upon which that housing is occupied; and

■ the characteristics of the occupiers of that housing.

To do this, we have analysed house prices at a ward level, dividing each region into 10 equal sized groups by reference to the average sale price of housing sold in the year to the end of June 2013.

We have then aggregated Census data for the wards within each group, in order to build up a picture of their different characteristics.

Taken from
Spotlight: A Housing Market Divided