Oxford house prices: Slight decline as Brexit begins to have impact
11-17-2018
By Tom Williams @oxmailtomw
Reporter
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House prices in Oxford declined slightly in September, but property buyers are still paying £100,000 more for a home than they would have done five years ago.
The average price for a house in the city was 0.2 per cent down in the month-by-month comparison but there has still been a 1.1 per cent rise over the last 12 months overall.
The latest data comes from the Office of National Statistics and shows that the average property in the area sold for £424,231 – significantly higher than the UK average of £232,554.
Across the south east, property prices have risen by 1.7 per cent in the last year, to £328,059. The region underperformed compared to the UK as whole, which saw the average property value increase by 3.5 per cent.
ONS has compiled the data as part of its House Price Index, using house sale information from the Land Registry.
It found that the average homeowner in Oxford will have seen their property jump in value by around £112,000 in the last five years.
The figures also showed that buyers who made their first step onto the property ladder in Oxford in September spent an average of £376,894 – around £100,000 more than it would have cost them five years ago.
Frances Clacy, research analyst at estate agents Savills, said a slowdown in growth compared to the previous year was caused by lenders adopting more stringent criteria before agreeing to finance a mortgage.
She said: "The higher value markets of London, the south east and the east of England, where affordability is most stretched, have been particularly impacted. For the capital, house prices are now lower than they were a year ago.
"Economic and political uncertainty, particularly surrounding the outcome of Brexit, also means buyers have become more cautious.
"On the flipside, the West and East Midlands have been the strongest performing regions over the past year. Despite these strong levels of house price growth more recently, average values still remain below the £200k mark for both regions.
"We are forecasting that the Midlands, North, Scotland and Wales will all outperform the UK average over the next five years as these regions have fewer constraints on mortgage affordability and have more capacity for further house price growth.”
Between August last year and July this year, the most recent 12 months for which sales volume data is available, 1,250 homes were sold in Oxford, 7 per cent fewer than in the previous year.
The highest house prices in the country in September were found in London's Kensington and Chelsea, where properties sold for an average of £1.5 million – 19 times the cost of a home in Burnley, where the average property cost just £79,400.