Eastwood, the Nottinghamshire town and birthplace of DH Lawrence, was Britain’s property hotspot last year, according to Rightmove, the online property portal.
The average asking price of homes in the former coalmining town increased by 29 per cent in 2022, with prices rising five times faster there than the UK average. By comparison, the average asking price across the country as a whole rose by 5.6 per cent.
At the beginning of 2022, a home in Eastwood would have set buyers back about £179,000 on average. By the end of the year, that figure had risen to more than £231,000.
Will Watson, a director of the Watsons estate agency in Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, said there had been an increase in the number of would-be buyers looking at Eastwood to take advantage of relatively cheap houses.
“There is quite a high proportion of ex-local authority and terraced houses, which are well built and represent good value for money, with many sales we see below the national average, so it’s no surprise that people have been relocating to the Eastwood area for more value,” Watson said.
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Hulme, in Greater Manchester, was second in Rightmove’s list of 2022 property hotspots, with asking prices there increasing by 26 per cent over the year to an average of £238,249.
In Sandbanks, Dorset, average asking prices climbed by 22 per cent to £1.59 million. In terms of regions, the biggest price rises were in the northeast of England, where asking prices increased by 10.3 per cent last year, according to Rightmove.
House prices rose sharply during the pandemic as lockdowns triggered a once-in-a-generation rethink of how and where people lived. Compared with three years ago, shortly before the coronavirus outbreak, asking prices across Britain have increased by 20 per cent.
“To put that into context, asking prices rose just 3 per cent in the previous three years and we need to go all the way back to 2013 to see similar price growth,” Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s head of property data, said.
Prices have been growing more rapidly in Wales, where they are up by 27 per cent since the start of 2020. Reflecting the “race for space”, asking prices in London have lagged behind and are up by only 11 per cent over the past three years.
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House price inflation has slowed dramatically in recent months as the market has reacted to the economic outlook and the jump in interest rates. This has made mortgages more expensive for would-be movers and has reduced their buying power. The consensus among economists is that house prices will fall by 5 per cent to 10 per cent in the coming 12 months.
Bannister and his team are more optimistic, however. “We expect average asking prices to drop by 2 per cent next year, now that the frenetic period for the market is over,” he said.
In contrast with conditions during the global financial crisis in 2008, the labour market is still holding strong and Bannister does not expect to see a rise in forced sales. This, he said, should keep supply tight and “prevent more major price falls”.
However, Rightmove said there was likely to be a period of readjustment for both buyers and sellers at the start of 2023 as the market settled. This year, it said, may favour “bold sellers” who look to offset a lower offer on their present home by offering less on their onward purchase, as long as they are willing to give up gains made on their property during the pandemic.