Bridging Finance News:- Edinburgh and Liverpool saw the highest year-on-year house price growth of 5.1 per cent and 4.9 per cent for June2019, according to Zoopla’s hometrack index.
The average price of a house in Edinburgh now stands at £232,300 while in Liverpool it’s £124,100.
The index, which looks at 20 cities in the UK, reported an overall annual increase in house prices of 1.7 per cent in June.
It noted house prices had weakened rapidly along the south coast with six cities reporting rises of less than one per cent. These included Portsmouth at 0.8 per cent, Bournemouth at 0.7 per cent and Southampton at 0.5 per cent.
Bristol had the highest annual growth rate in southern England at 2 per cent.
Hometrack said sales were not keeping pace with the new supply of homes in the south. New supply had grown faster than sales since 2016 with 1.3 units of supply new to the market for every sale agreed.
London prices stayed flat in June showing neither a decrease nor increase compared with the previous year. Hometrack said it thought London was coming to the end of a three-year re-pricing process as there had been an increase in sales agreed and less new supply.
“Prices are still falling across many parts of London on an annual basis, but the quarterly growth rate has improved. Prices are firming on the back of more realistic pricing of new supply which is much closer to what buyers are prepared to pay.”
Bridging Finance by HZA
Brokers Hank Zarihs Associates welcomed news that London prices were no longer dropping. The brokerage said commercial development finance lenders were keen to offer construction loans and instant bridging finance for new build schemes in the capital.
Market dynamics are stronger in northern cities
Northern cities’ continued growth in sales has eroded supply at an increasing rate, supporting above average price growth. Cardiff and Nottingham each saw an year-on-year growth of 4.7 per cent bringing average prices to £211,100 and £155,800 respectively. Birmingham showed a weaker year-on-year growth of 4 per cent bringing the average home cost to £167,000.
The ratio of sales to new supply in the north has been downward for the last five years but Hometrack pointed to this reversing in the first quarter of 2019.