Housing market 'slow but steady' next year
Housing market 'slow but steady' next year
HOUSE prices in Northamptonshire rose in the past year but at only half the rate of the national average, according to new figures.
The average Northampton house price (162,578) grew by three per cent in the last financial quarter but across Northamptonshire as a whole, they fell back by two per cent. And in the past 12 months, the average house price in the East Midlands went up by 2.5 per cent to 136,492.
Nationally, house prices went up 5.9 per cent in 2009 as the UK property market bounced back from last year's double digit declines, new figures show.
The average cost of a UK home rose by another 0.4 per cent in December to 162,103, marking the eighth straight month of price increases, according to the latest financial survey by the Nationwide Building Society.
The performance in 2009 is a surprise turnaround on the 15.9 per cent price plunge in 2008 and comes despite the worst recession since World War Two.
The figures see the past decade end on a high note for the UK property sector which had been hammered by the credit crunch and the banking crisis.
And Nationwide said the past decade was the strongest on record for British house prices in spite of the woes of 2008.
However, a leading Northampton estate agent said the figures for the whole country did not resemble the housing market in Northamptonshire.
Quentin Jackson-Stops, of Jackson-Stops and Staff in Bridge Street, Northampton, said: "I don't think house prices will do very much in the next year.
"They may level out in 2010 but I don't believe they have gone up by six per cent. It's not very representative of this area. The reality is that there are going to be some places in the country where house prices will go up, like central London, but around Northampton and in Northamptonshire, they have not.
"And this won't particularly change in 2010."
Estate agent Richard Greener added: "The new figures are exactly in line with ours which were about five per cent up.
"We noticed a significant improvement in the housing market in January and February, culminating in a very, very busy December.
"But I see the market continuing to be slow but steady next year but I don't think it will be spectacular."
By Rob Middleton
Assistant News Editor
rob.middleton@northantsnews.co.uk
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