UK's cities showing strong house price inflation

House prices in UK cities rose by 6.3 percent in the year to November, up from 4.9 percent a year ago, according to the latest figures from property market analysts Hometrack.

Their analysis showed that cities with the weakest growth in house price inflation since 2009 are the areas now recording the highest prices. Glasgow is the fastest-growing city with house price inflation at 7.9 percent. The cities with the highest house price inflation in the last 12 months are:

• Glasgow 7.9%
• Edinburgh 7.6%
• Leicester 7.5%
• Birmingham 7.3%
• Manchester 6.6%
• Nottingham 6.4%
• Liverpool 6.2%
• Bristol 6.1%

Hometrack noted that cities where house prices are at or below their 2007 levels (before the financial crash) are now registering the highest growth in prices with those areas still providing affordable property.

Its monthly report has predicted that city house prices are expected to increase by 5 percent in 2018, stating: "A year ago, we predicted that UK city house price growth would be 4 percent as a continued recovery in regional city house prices would offset very low nominal growth in London. We expect 2018 to follow a similar pattern."

Meanwhile, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has reported that demand in the UK property market is stabilising after a difficult year. Its monthly market survey asks its chartered surveyor members, who are part of the nationwide panel of surveyors who work with Homeward Legal and our sister site Surveyor Local, to report on demand for their services.

The RICS said the short-term outlook for the UK property market was "broadly flat" with fewer new instructions and "subdued prices", particularly in London, East Anglia and the south-east.

RICS chief economist Simon Rubinsohn said: "It is clear from the results that the mood music in London and the south-east is very much flatter than elsewhere, and interestingly, the forward-looking indicators suggest this is likely to persist into the new year."

The RICS pointed to factors that are still affecting the housing market, including the new rules on stamp duty for first-time buyers, political uncertainty around Brexit and, most pertinently, a lack of housing stock coming up for sale.