House prices have boomed in some parts of the country while others are still suffering.
Daventry, Alfreton, Pudsey, Selby, Margate, Slough and Clacton-on-Sea are among the country's top property sales hotspots, having seen big jumps in the number of transactions taking place last year, according to a report.
The East Midlands saw the biggest year-on-year increase in house sales in 2014, recording a 26% upswing, according to the research from Lloyds Bank, which is based on Land Registry data covering England and Wales.
The research compared the number of property sales in the first 10 months of last year with those in the first 10 months of 2013.
Around 760,000 sales took place across the country between January and October, marking a 21% increase on the same period in 2013.
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The number of property sales taking place in a handful of towns last year even managed to surpass the number which took place in these places in 2007, at the height of the housing boom.
The 12 towns where sales were higher in 2014 than in 2007 were Biggleswade, Wallingford, Didcot, Alton and Romsey in the South East, St Neots in East Anglia, Hinckley in the East Midlands, Evesham, Droitwich and Malvern in the West Midlands and Melksham and Newquay in the South West of England.
Many property sales hotspots in 2014 were located in the East Midlands, with Daventry seeing the biggest year-on-year uplift, at 56%, followed by Alfreton, which recorded a 53% increase. Sutton-in-Ashfield and Corby were also among the top 10 towns to see the largest increases in sales.
At 97%, the overwhelming majority of towns across England and Wales saw an increase in house sales between 2013 and 2014.
Property hotspots
But in further signs that the London market is cooling off, the capital saw a year-on-year decline in sales in more than one fifth (22%) of its boroughs.
Across London, there was an 11% year-on-year increase in sales in 2014, which is the smallest uplift recorded across any region last year.
The report said this finding fits with other studies showing that the London market has "slowed sharply" since last summer.
London has driven much of the housing market recovery in recent years.
Looking back over the last five years, London has seen a larger pick-up in sales than any other region, with transactions there lifting by 74% between 2009 and 2014.
Meanwhile, Amersham in Buckinghamshire was found to be the town with the biggest fall in sales last year, with an 11% decline.
Andy Hulme, mortgages director at Lloyds Bank, said: "Low interest rates, improvements in the UK economy and Government schemes, such as Help to Buy, all appear to have contributed to the rise in home sales."
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He continued: "There is a clear north versus south pattern to the housing market recovery, with sales closer to their 2007 levels in the south.
"Indeed, a small number of towns recorded higher sales last year than seven years earlier, but sales remained much lower than 2007 levels in most areas."
A separate report released by property analysts Hometrack has found that the strong property price growth which has already taken place in cities like London and Oxford in recent years will restrict the ability of prices to increase further in the medium term.
Hometrack said that average property prices in both these areas are now typically more than 12 times local annual earnings, which is almost double the UK average of 6.3 times wages.
Going forward, Hometrack expects to see the momentum behind the housing market shift towards cities such as Liverpool, Sheffield and Glasgow, which have been slower to see property prices recover.
Biggest increases
- Daventry, East Midlands, 56%
- Alfreton, East Midlands, 53%
- Pudsey, Yorkshire and the Humber, 51%
- Sutton-in-Ashfield, East Midlands, 50%
- Selby, Yorkshire and the Humber, 48%
- Corby, East Midlands, 47%
- Margate, South East, 46%
- Slough, South East, 45%
- Wickford, South East, 44%
- Clacton-on-Sea, South East, 44%
Biggest falls
- Amersham, South East, minus 11%
- Ealing, London, minus 10%
- Leatherhead, South East, minus 5%
- Southwark, London, minus 5%
- Hammersmith and Fulham, London, minus 4%
- Wallsend, North, minus 4%
- Islington, London, minus 2%
- Stamford, East Midlands, minus 2%
- Camden, London, minus 1%
- Rickmansworth, South East, minus 1%
Regional divide
- North, 20%
- Yorkshire and the Humber, 23%
- North West, 25%
- East Midlands, 26%
- West Midlands, 25%
- East Anglia, 21%
- Wales, 21%
- South West, 22%
- South East, 21%
- London, 11%
- England and Wales, 21%
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