Landlords Wanted
Manchester has beaten London to be named the UK city with the strongest house price growth in 2013, with property values up 21% over the year, according to Nationwide building society.
While much of the coverage of the housing market in 2013 focused on London’s turbo-charged housing market, Nationwide says Manchester – and, specifically, the area covered by the city council – as the star performer last year, with London in second place and Brighton in third. According to the society, prices in the capital ended the year up by either 14.9% or 13%, depending on which measure is used, while Brighton saw growth of 12%.
The price of an average UK home increased by 8.4% over the year, and ended 2013 at £175,826, though there were wide variations by region, with the north of England and Scotland only managing a 1.9% and 3.7% annual increase respectively, Nationwide said. Edinburgh and Glasgow were named two of the “worst-performing” cities in 2013, with annual increases of just 1% and 2% respectively. In the last three months of 2013 house prices rose by an annual 7.1% compared to the same period in the previous year.
However, it was Nationwide’s claim that Manchester was the best-performing major town or city that proved the most eye-catching. It says average prices in the “city of Manchester” jumped 21% in 2013 to an average of £209,627. That rate of increase far exceeded the annual rise experienced by the wider Greater Manchester area, which was put at 5%, lifting the average price-tag there to £165,897.
Other cities that saw strong price growth last year, according to Nationwide, were Leicester (up 11%) and Birmingham (up 10%).
Source: Rupert Jones theguardian.com, Friday 3 January 2014 08.41 GMT