The annual North Yorkshire House Price Index has revealed a 14.4% average increase in house prices across the region over the last 12 months. It is the highest price rise since the start of The Search Partnership House Price Index 12 years ago, which records the average price paid per square foot for property, as recorded by the Land Registry across six key areas in North Yorkshire – Thirsk, Ripon, Boroughbridge, Harrogate, Wetherby and Bedale.
Compiled by the region’s leading property buying agents, The Search Partnership, the largest increases were seen in the Thirsk villages (+24%) with significant increases also showing in the Ripon villages (+16%) and the Boroughbridge villages (15%). These increases are far greater than those reported last year, which showed an annual increase of 7.9% across the region.
Toby Milbank, director of The Search Partnership, explained: “These statistics do show a stellar performance for house prices in North Yorkshire. The sales prices are taken from the average of individual sales prices recorded at The Land Registry and are therefore extremely accurate. This rate of price increase now brings the average 10-year house price increase for the region to 34% during a period, when inflation has increased by around 26%.
“The Land Registry sales prices are delayed by around three months and therefore, come to an end in November 2022. The months of November, December and January are likely to show average sale prices falling in all three months, as the effect of interest rate rises started to bite and the cost of living crisis deepens.”
Fellow director at The Search Partnership, Tom Robinson, added: “The housing market has calmed in recent months following the fallout from the Autumn “mini” budget, rising mortgage rates and a cost of living crisis. Despite prices having reached their peak and starting to fall in some sectors of the market in the last quarter, we are pleased to report that this change has been gradual, rather than dramatic across our region. With around 85% of UK mortgages now on a fixed rate and with over 90% of customers taking out new loans on fixed rates, as a nation we do have a barrier against interest rate rises, which is one of the reasons that prices have not dropped off a cliff edge.”
Looking ahead, The Search Partnership is predicting the market to fall in 2023. Toby added: “With household income being put under pressure by higher living costs and continuing interest rate rises, the sub £750,000 market will be worse affected, and we predict a fall of over 5% in 2023. For detached houses in the £750,000 to £2m bracket we predict a 2% reduction in house prices this year. At the top end of the market, above £2m, where the amount of stock remains extremely low and demand still high and with a
much-reduced reliance on mortgage finance, we don’t foresee price falls in this sector over the next 12 months.