Property price approaching £200,000 in England and Wales

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by Kay Murchie

According to Chesterton, the property experts, the average house price in England and Wales is currently £198,422. However, over the last 2 months, average growth in house prices has been sluggish, falling from 10.6% in July to 9.4% in September.

Chesterton collects information from several indicators such as Halifax, the Land Registry and Nationwide – to calculate overall market trends. Chesterton finds several factors exerting downward pressure on the property market.

The factors included a decline in consumer confidence, rising interest rates and the recent credit crunch which has resulted in a tightening of lending criteria for mortgages. Furthermore, the launch of Home Information Packs (Hips) is also thought to have had an impact.

The average price of a property owned by a senior official or manager has risen 7.5% in the last year which is in accordance with property owned by unskilled manual workers, which has risen 7.6% since September 2006.

The fastest annual growth has been noted in Kensington and Chelsea - 28.3% to September. In comparison, property prices in Blaenau Gwent, a county borough in Wales, declined by 0.6%.