Cambridge leads UK house price rise

The first UK cities house price index, which monitors 20 urban areas using Land Registry data (approximately a third of all the homes in the country), reveals that Cambridge has enjoyed the biggest increase in the past seven years. Property values in the city jumped £53,000 in the past 12 months to be a third higher than levels recorded in 2007.

In the last year, though, London leads the way, with prices rising 18.1 per cent, just ahead of Cambridge's 17.9 per cent. Indeed, the strongest performing cities are in southern England. Average house prices have grown between £61,000 and £5,000 in the 12 months to September 2014. In percentage terms, house price growth has ranged from 18.1 per cent in London to 4.3 per cent in Glasgow. 14 of the 20 cities are growing more slowly than the UK national average rate of 9 per cent."The recent upward pressure on UK house prices is weakening on the back of slowing growth in the London housing market, where the headline rate of growth has reduced after 18 months of consecutive increases," explains Hometrack.