Property in Margate saw the highest asking price hikes in 2015 while Bristol was the most searched for place outside of London, new figures have revealed.
According to Rightmove, the seaside town of Margate in Kent saw the price of property go up by 24.2% to £204,631 between January and the end of November, followed closely by Altrincham in Cheshire with a rise of 21.9% to £484,258.
The rest of the top five is made up of the towns of Gravesend (+20.5%), Ramsgate (+18.6%) and Dartford (+17.4%), all in Kent.
Towns in Kent are now benefiting from the ripple effect of high property prices in London as homebuyers look for affordable homes outside of the capital.
With demand for property hit an all-time high, the Rightmove website had 110 million visits from house hunters each month in 2015.
Outside of London, the most searched for places were Bristol and Cambridge, with almost 14 million searches between them over the year.
The average time for a property to sell across England and Wales was 62 days throughout 2015.
Properties in Welwyn Garden City were the fastest selling outside London, taking an average of only 25 days on the site before being marked as sold, followed in second place by nearby Hertford with an average of 26 days.
Rightmove’s housing expert Sam Mitchell said: “This year saw demand reach record levels for home-hunters both buying and renting, and the ripple effect from London to the South East moved even further out to places like Essex and Hertfordshire, as you can see from how quick properties are selling in these locations. Usually January is Rightmove’s busiest month but the New Year rush stayed even longer this year, and we recorded our busiest ever month in March.
“It’ll be interesting to see how 2016 plays out with the new buy-to-let stamp duty coming in in April – prices are looking set to increase even further so those people having issues affording the location they want could think about looking at an area further afield. Although it might not be on their immediate wish list of places to look, they could find a more affordable property and have less of a battle against fellow potential buyers.”