Property asking prices rose to a new record high of nearly £256,000 in March amid a “spring seller rush”.
The average asking price across England and Wales lifted by 1.6pc month-on-month to £255,962, surpassing a peak set last July by £2,304, according to property website Rightmove.
A new record was also set in London, where average asking prices have reached £552,530, which is £8,298 above the capital’s previous high, reached last October.
Across England and Wales, sellers’ asking prices are now 6.8pc or £16,251 higher than a year ago and in London they have seen annual growth of 11.3pc, according to the website, whose records go back to 2002. But Rightmove said that the South West and the South East, both affected by the recent severe flooding, “lag behind the spring seller rush”.
The North was the only region where asking prices were down year-on-year, with a 0.3pc annual fall taking them to £145,861 on average, while sellers in Wales were asking 4.6pc more for their properties than a year ago, at around £171,359.
Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: “With prices on the up and set to increase more, there is a greater sense of urgency among buyers.”
Rightmove is also seeing evidence that house price growth in London is no longer being driven by the wealthy “prime central” boroughs.
London’s worst-performing borough in March was Kensington and Chelsea, where asking prices had dropped by 2.4pc on the previous month.
But the average price tag for a home in the borough was still £2.1m.
The capital’s best-performing borough was found to be Haringey, where prices had surged by 9.5pc month-on-month to reach £597,634 typically.
Westminster and Camden, where average asking prices were above £1m, were also among Rightmove’s worst-performing areas in London in March, while Barnet and Hounslow, where prices were around £600,000-plus, were among the best.
Prime central London property has been a particular attraction in recent years for wealthy overseas investors looking for a “safe haven” for their cash.
Mr Shipside said the “slack” caused by prime London’s slowdown had been taken up by other London boroughs and surrounding areas of the South.
Last week, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said it was seeing evidence that the surge in demand from potential buyers which had been seen over the past year was starting to slow down.