"Brexit impact" slows down rate of house price growth

The largest cities in the UK saw an average increase of 5.1% in house prices in the twelve months to June 2017, however, the capital saw growth slow to 2.6%, the slowest rate in more than five years.

Birmingham saw the fastest pace of price growth in the UK according to Hometrack’s UK Cities House Price Index, with a rise of 6.1% in the first half of the year alone, and a solid 7.8% over the whole year. Next was Edinburgh, with a 5.5% increase and Manchester, showing 4.7%.

London was still by far and large the most expensive city in which to purchase a property, the average price of £492,700 was nearly £70,000 more than that of its closest competitors Cambridge, at £425,500, and Oxford, at £424,800.

In total, Hometrack assessed the average home price across the 20 largest cities in the UK as £252,400 against the UK as a whole at £211,300.

Research and insight director at Hometrack, Richard Donnell said that the reason for the decline in growth of 10% was down to affordability pressure as a result of the Brexit vote.

"Despite a material slowdown in the rate of house price growth in south eastern England, the headline rate of city house price inflation is holding up, despite the squeeze on real incomes and uncertainty around Brexit," he said before going on to state that "The Brexit impact was greatest over the second half of 2016 but house price growth has picked up over the last six months."