Stephanie McMahon, Strutt & Parker's head of research, said: "As we move through the last quarter of the year we predict that the strongest growth for 2015 will have been in the engine rooms of the South East (5.8%) and the East of England (7.1%), locations which benefit from their proximity to London and prime commuter catchments."

"Scotland is also showing good growth (5.8%) with renewed market vigour following last year's referendum and May's election."

"The five year outlook sees these three regions having some of the strongest growth, although Greater London will strengthen again throughout the time period (19.8% 2015-2019 inclusive). The volumes in PCL (prime city location) have shown a distinct slowdown over the past year, although we still anticipate price growth in 2015 (2.5%).

"Such a thin market shows much greater volatility and has no doubt been impacted by tax changes following a period of strong and sustained growth.

"Other areas of interest include the South West. From our Housing Futures research we know that there is a huge aspiration to live there – our national survey showed that 15.6% of respondents who said they had plans to move within the next five years wanted to live in the South West, particularly for retirement and lifestyle reasons. This trend is reinforced by the 2014 ONS data which pointed to the South West being the region with the highest homeworking rate in the UK, at 17.1%.

"That said, our Housing Futures survey also showed that taking into account all respondents, and analysing by age, that the South West was one of the areas that would experience a large exodus of people between the ages of 18-29, indicating that older cohorts have perhaps greater flexibility in their working styles."