Poorer home buyers fall by wayside, Land Registry figures show

The Land Registry has put the average house price in England and Wales during February at £162,606, up just 0.2% on the month before and an annual rise of 1%.

Nationwide is in very close agreement with the Land Registry, quoting virtually the same price for February house prices, and a rise to £164,630 in March.

According to Land Registry latest data on transactions, sales volumes have decreased.

The data covers the period September to December of last year, when there were 56,886 transactions on average per month – down from 61,392 for the same period the year before.

However, the national figures seem almost meaningless, given that London house prices have grown 6.3% in a year to stand at an average of £370,819 in February, according to the Land Registry. That figure compares with an average of £100,363 in the North-East. Compared with London’s gain, house prices in Middlesbrough fell 8.9% over the year and by 7.5% in Bridgend, Wales.

But easily the most striking feature of the latest Land Registry report is that it the cheapest houses that have all had annual falls in transactions, in sharp contrast to the most expensive homes, where sales have picked up.

On an annual basis, fewer houses have sold in each and every price bracket all the way up to £1m. For example, there was a 14% drop in the sales of homes between £200,000 and £250,000 and a 3% drop in properties between £800,000 and £1m.

But sales of houses in the £1m to £1.5m price bracket soared 16%, and in the £1.5m to £2m bracket shot up 25%. There were 22% more sales of properties costing £2m-plus.

The Land Registry also quotes repossessions running at 1,440 per month between last September and December.

According to the usual muddling Nationwide house price index, house prices did not change between February and March, although the same index shows that when taking out the seasonal adjustment, they grew from £162,638 to £164,630.

However, like the Land Registry, Nationwide shows the same disconnect between London and the other UK housing markets. It says the average London house price now stands at £306,919, which is higher than the peak of 2007.

While lower than the Land Registry price for London, the difference is probably explained that Land Registry prices also cover cash purchases whereas Nationwide’s data is based on mortgage approvals.

There is, however, little doubt that London’s streets in the capital’s most exclusive postcodes are paved with gold.

Knight Frank has reported that purchasers of prime central London property in the last year will have done better than if they had bought gold. It says that in prime central London there has been 8.1% house price growth in the last 12 months, compared with a 2.3% fall in the value of gold over the same time.

This is a sudden turnaround: gold has outperformed prime central London in the last decade as a whole. In the ten years to 2013, gold has risen 379%, compared to London residential price rises of 124%.