Is Manchester the new property hotspot?

Manchester is seemingly the latest property hotspot, after new research revealed that values here rose fastest over the last year than any other part of the country.

Property price values rose by 8.8% in Manchester during February, in comparison to the same period in 2016. Portsmouth saw a rise of 8.1% as buyers were lured back to the market due to an improving employment outlook and record low mortgage rates.

Price Rises

According to the latest Hometrack UK cites house price index, Bristol also saw high growth, with rises of 8% last month. The Index looks at property price movements across the UK’s 20 biggest cities.

However, the capital is seeing growth cool, with annual property price growth slowing to 5.6%-the lowest level since 2013. London is now tenth on the list of fastest growing cities, with weaker demand partly a cause.

Is Manchester the new property hotspot?

Overall, the headline rate of growth for Hometrack’s UK Cities Index is running at 6.4%, down from 6.9% one month ago and 7.8% one year ago.

The table below shows how property prices for all 20 regions assessed by Hometrack have faired:

Flat

Richard Donnell, insight director at Hometrack, noted: ‘Levels of housing turnover across UK cities are expected to remain broadly flat over 2017. There is some further upside for sales volume in regional cities but much depends upon how would be buyers respond to external factors, not least the impact of lower real wage growth, the potential for higher mortgage rates and whether demand will be impacted by the triggering of Article 50 at the end of the month.’[1]

‘In cities where affordability remains attractive we expect demand to hold up in the short term albeit with slower growth in sales volumes. Overall we continue to expect the rate of house price growth to moderate over the rest of 2017,’ he added.[1]

[1] https://www.propertyinvestortoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2017/3/manchester-has-fastest-growing-house-prices-in-the-uk