by Mark Johnston
In the last ten years the value of homes in the United Kingdom has more than doubled to reach £3.755 trillion, that’s £3,755,000,000,000,000,000, I’m sure you’ll agree that’s a hell of a lot of money.The new research which was recently published showing to doubling of privately owned property (we mean the houses that we live in) showed that the value increased by 118% from £1.719 trillion back in 2009. The retail price index which we use to measure inflation rose by 29% between the same period.
The increase equates to around £2 trillion which is around £33,000 for every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom.
It should be noted though that the overall value of our nations housing stock is actually down 8% when looking back to 2007 when house prices dropped considerably between 2007 and 2009. The value did bounce back during 2009 by around 2% as house prices started to stabilise and we actual tracked some increases across the board.
The Halifax who published the report has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to house prices. It produces the Halifax House Price Index which is publishes by using data it accurses as one of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders. The House Price Index includes data on the average house price,
regional average house prices, month on month differences, quarterly changes and comparisons with the same month the previous year. The data is taken from a sample of its mortgage transactions which usually covers around 15,000 house purchases each month which works out about 25% of all mortgages.
The report also showed that the historic gap in house prices between the north and south has closed, reducing over the last ten year period. Between the end of the 90’s and 2009, the value of houses in the north of England increased by over 130% whilst the south, including London only increased by 109%. This resulting in the north taking a larger proportion of the total UK housing assets than ever before moving from a 41% share in 1999 to 44% in 2009.
Northern Ireland saw the largest increase in property value which may not be a surprise given the massive property boom that Dublin and the rest of the Republic of Ireland had enjoyed. Housing value increased by 198% in Northern Ireland, the total value went from £31 billion in 1999 to a whopping £92 billion in 2009.
The North East came second with a 147% increase followed very closely by Scotland at 145%. The largest county in England, Yorkshire and Humber saw an increase of 138% and 133% for the East Midlands.
Surprisingly the South East recorded the smallest increases at 100% and the East of England and West Midlands both came in at 107%.
Although this may look good news to house owners all areas and regions have seen a fall if compared to 2007 rather than 2009. Northern Ireland has been worst hit even though it saw a historic rise it just shows that the market is still very volatile especially in Ireland where the value has fallen by around 20% in the last 2 years.
Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, said: “The past decade has seen a substantial increase in the value of housing assets in the UK, with all regions recording average annual increases of 7%-12%.
“Notably, there are real signs of a narrowing north-south divide as the northern regions recorded bigger increases.”
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