Smart and scruffy: the stars of 2016

This four-bedroom house in Spixworth, near Norwich, is £735,000 (Strutt & Parker)

League leaders
The place with the highest gain in house prices in the year to October 2016 is Basildon. The Essex town showed a 19.9 per cent gain, resulting in an average property price of £301,633, according to research based on Office for National Statistics data collated for The Times by Lucian Cook, the director of residential research at Savills.

This was closely followed by Slough, in Berkshire, with 19.6 per cent growth and an average property price of £308,810. The top-performing London locations were Barking and Dagenham, in the east, which experienced a 18.2 per cent rise in house prices to an average £287,978, followed by Havering (17.6 per cent), Newham (17.1 per cent) and Bexley (16.9 per cent).

Other places experiencing strong demand, pushing up prices, include Luton in Bedfordshire (17.7 per cent growth), Bedford city (17.4 per cent), Thurrock in Essex (16.8 per cent), Broxbourne in Hertfordshire (16.6 per cent), Rutland in the East Midlands (16.6 per cent), Medway in Kent (15.2 per cent), and East Hertfordshire (15 per cent).

This three-bedroom cottage in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, is on sale through Savills for £625,000

Top-performing Scottish locations are East Renfrewshire, southwest of Glasgow, with a 17.7 per cent rise in house prices (average £222,523) and the Shetland Islands, with 17.3 per cent growth (average £144,203).

Cook says: “Because of tighter mortgage regulation people are forced to look at cheaper markets. Our list of top performers is dominated by the hunt for value for money. Many of these places are commuter towns and we are finding that buyers are looking further afield than before.”

The million-pound club
As a consequence of property seekers looking beyond the obvious locations, prices are rising rapidly in some unusual spots, with Manor Park in Newham, east London, gaining its first house sale of more than £1 million. In a neighbourhood where the average property price is £356,605, a four-bedroom house sold for £1.28 million.

The research shows that 29 neighbourhoods across England and Wales broke into the million-pound market in 2016, down from 34 in 2015. Johnny Morris, the research and analytics director at Countrywide, says: “When a house breaks the million-pound barrier it usually gets the neighbours talking, particularly if it looks anything like their own home. Across much of the north, the million-pound mark has rarely been surpassed and where it has, it has been done by the once-in-a-generation sale of a country estate. This is changing and in 2016 it was more likely to have been a big family home than something extraordinary that was responsible for first breaching the million-pound barrier.

“While a million-pound sale is still a talking point, it’s far more common than it was in the late 1990s. As prices have risen it’s no longer confined to parts of southwest and central London, it’s far more widespread. And when the million-pound mark is first broken, the second million-pound sale comes along twice as quickly as it did a decade ago,” Morris says.

Wellingborough, in Northamptonshire, and Bulwell, in Nottinghamshire spectacularly broke through the £1 million barrier with the sale of properties for £3 million and £2.06 million, respectively.

There were also sales of more than £1 million in Crewe in Cheshire; Cheetham Hill in Manchester; Batley, Featherstone and Hepworth in West Yorkshire; Stillington in North
Yorkshire; and Seaham in Co Durham.

In Wales, Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys, Llangollen in Denbighshire, and Pontardawe in the Swansea Valley broke the barrier.

Oxbridge rules
Almost all estate agents agree that the property sales stars of 2016 are Oxford and Cambridge. A combination of buoyant economies and demand outstripping supply for properties resulted in a booming housing market. And with the planned Oxford to Cambridge Varsity Line train link given £110 million funding by the government, the two cities are destined to carry on growing.

In Cambridge the average house price is £420,600, 54.3 per cent above its pre-credit-crunch peak; in Oxford the average house price is £414,900, 45.2 per cent above its previous peak.

James MacKenzie, the head of Strutt & Parker’s national country house department, says: “The route of the new Varsity Line can only mean good things for the country markets in Bedfordshire and north Buckinghamshire. It’s all about distance to London. So these very pretty villages near Milton Keynes and even west Cambridgeshire will suddenly seem more attractive.”

According to research by the estate agency Carter Jonas, there are signs that this knock-on effect is already occurring. Around Cambridge, Huntingdonshire recorded price growth of 11.4 per cent, East Cambridgeshire 11.4 per cent, Fenland 10.6 per cent, and south Cambridgeshire 9.8 per cent.

It is a similar tale around Oxford where price growth in West Oxfordshire and Cherwell hit 8.1 per cent and 7.9 per cent in the Vale of the White Horse, according to Carter Jonas data.

This house with six bedrooms in Frinsted, Kent, is on sale with Knight Frank for £1.5 million

Top trend: waterside
In 2016 many of us wanted to escape the city and head for the peace of a waterside location. As MacKenzie says: “The waterside market has rocketed in Devon and Cornwall.” As it has elsewhere.

Richard Speedy, the head of Strutt & Parker in Exeter, says: “I think the villages along the Exe Estuary will be a hotspot next year. They are already sought after, but we are seeing more ‘lifestyle buyers’ who want to be close to Exeter and on or close to the water. This includes Topsham, Exton, Lympstone and Exmouth.”

Another area that grew in popularity this year is the Kent coast with its easy, fast train access into London and seaside locations. Edward Church, the head of Strutt & Parker in Canterbury, says: “The Kent Coast has seen some of the highest price growth in the past two years. Seaside property in Kent trades at a premium of at least 50 per cent above the same house inland. All houses in Kent have caught up with pre-recession prices, but the seaside homes have grown the fastest.”

Rents rise — except in London
For the first time this decade rents are rising faster outside London than in the city. Across the UK rents rose by 1.12 per cent in the year to November, while in London rents shrank by 0.31 per cent.

Data in the National Rental Review published today by Landbay, the buy-to-let lender, shows that — excluding London — rents rose by 1.91 per cent, with the fastest growth in the East Midlands (2.6 per cent) and northwest England (2.03 per cent).

The figures correlate with those released this week by the estate agency Countrywide, which showed that in November the average London rent was 0.7 per cent lower than a year ago, the sharpest fall since October 2010.

Although rents are falling in London, they remain 60 per cent higher than elsewhere. A surge in the number of homes available to rent in the city is helping to narrow the gap, according to Countrywide. In November there were 32 per cent more properties to rent in London than a year ago, while the number of tenants rose by only 9 per cent. Johnny Morris, the research director at Countrywide, says: “With more choice and facing stretched affordability, tenants are using their negotiating power to agree lower rents than in 2015.”

Last month rents were cut on 11 per cent of homes let in London, more than double the proportion in 2015. The average rent in central London is £2,402 a month (£1,284 in Greater London). The cheapest places to rent are Wales (£632 per month) and northern England (£656). In Scotland the average rent is £677 a month, according to Countrywide.

Landbay’s report suggests that Luton, in Bedfordshire, has had the fastest growth in rents, with a 6.61 per cent rise up to November, while rents have fallen farthest in Aberdeen, with a 12.15 per cent drop.