Average house prices in England and Wales have smashed the £300,000 barrier for the first time.
According to data from Rightmove, the property website, in the year to March, the average asking price rose by 7.6 per cent to an unprecedented high of £303,190. This means that house prices have increased by 50 per cent in a decade, comfortably outpacing the 22 per cent average wage growth over the same period. In 2006, the average asking price stood at £200,980.
Powering the latest rise is a trend that is taking the property boom beyond London, where average asking prices hit £644,045, up 11 per cent. Records were set in six out of ten regions, including the West Midlands, where prices soared by 5.5 per cent to £204,140, and in the north-west, where they hopped by three per cent to £177,437.
Meanwhile, more homes are coming onto the market. Rightmove director Miles Shipside said that an average of 30,000 properties had come to the market each week over the past month, a three per cent increase on the same period in 2015.
However, house prices are becoming increasingly unaffordable for many of those trying to get on the property ladder, he added. “More first-time buyers and would-be trader-uppers are finding themselves ill-equipped to cope with current house prices,” he said.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics in December suggested that prices in England had reached the £300,000 mark for the first time in the year to October. ONS figures are based on prices paid.
