While Saracens and Bath have yet to slug it out to see who will be crowned this year’s rugby Premiership champions, when it comes to house prices their rivals, London Irish, are the big winners.
The cost of homes around the Madejski Stadium in Reading has increased by 19% over the past year, hitting an average of £325,176 in the first quarter, according to Nationwide building society.
Russell Quirk, CEO of eMoov said: “Reading has enjoyed a sustained period of strong demand and this is bound to push up house prices in the area as a result. With a commute to the capital of as little as 30 minutes and the impending benefit of the Crossrail project, it is likely demand in Reading will remain strong.”
Next in its property price league table came London Welsh, another “London” club that isn’t actually in the capital. The club, which finished bottom in the Premiership, plays at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford, where prices have risen by 13% since the first quarter of 2015 to an average of £407,136. Homes very near the ground change hand for less, but high prices elsewhere in the city raise the average.
Quirk said that with a commute to the capital of just under an hour, buyers forced out of central London were almost the only ones able to afford property in the heart of Oxford and that this was maintaining house prices at more than double the national average.
Harlequins, which is in Richmond, in south-west London, saw the same increase in prices, and is top of the table for average cost – at £553,884.
The figures, from the UK’s largest building society and second biggest mortgage lender, reflect the north-south divide in property prices. At the bottom of the league is Sale Sharks, with the price of homes near the AJ Bell Stadium in Salford increasing by just 2% over the past year. The average cost of a home in the the borough was also the lowest for the 12 teams at £174,150.
The cities which are home to the two teams vying for the premiership title saw annual growth of slightly more, at 3%.
Alan Oliver, spokesman for Nationwide, said: “Prices in London and the south-east continue to see the strongest rates of annual growth, according to our most recent regional house price index. So it is no surprise to see the four clubs in that region (London Irish, London Welsh, Harlequins and Saracens) at the top of the house price premiership.
“While London continues to remain the strongest performing region, amongst the other English regions, the outer metropolitan area continues to outperform. This is highlighted by Reading, topping the premiership.”