House price heatmap: it's still winter in the regions
05-08-2014
This map compares house prices today with those in 2007, and shows that in many areas properties are worth 20pc less than seven years ago
Photo: Alamy
By Richard Dyson
A respected group of economists, the OECD, has called on the British authorities to rein in house price growth. It is the latest in a series of warnings which suggest that house price inflation poses a threat to Britain's economic recovery.
But how much have prices really grown?
Outside London and the surrounding regions, prices remain some way below their 2007 peak, as this map – produced by property adviser Savills and based on the latest Land Registry data from March this year – makes clear.
Prices in the vast majority of the country's regions remain 10pc lower than at their peak almost seven years ago. In some areas the difference is much greater. The Midlands and south Wales are two large areas where prices are 20pc or more below their peak. The lack of recovery in Wales has been recorded in a range of other data.
In London the story is very different. Prices in all of the central boroughs are now at least 20pc above their previous peak.
The "heat" effect clearly spills out of the capital towards the South and West, into affluent commuter areas in Surrey and Kent, where prices are between 5pc and 10pc higher than in 2007-08. Other "thawing" is visible along the M40 and also to the north of the capital.
Neal Hudson, the Savills residential research analyst who produced the map, said: “Most areas of the country and market sectors saw broadly the same levels of falls after the credit crunch. Since then, price growth has been very much focused in London and its commuter belt, where values are now above their previous peak. By contrast, large areas of the country remain at or below peak 2007-08 values.”