City house price growth falls to 2.7% in 2018

Northern, Midlands, Scottish and Welsh cities all lead the way for annual growth with Edinburgh’s average price up 6.8% annually; Liverpool up 6.3% and Birmingham, Nottingham and Cardiff all seeing growth of 5.9%.

Other than Aberdeen (where the housing market has suffered due to oil prices) the ‘bottom seven’ cities are all in the South or East of England.

Ten cities have posted double digit growth since the 2016 vote, with Birmingham (+16%) and Manchester (+15%) leading the charge. All cities posting double digit growth since 2016 are Northern, Scottish, and Welsh or located in the Midlands, with the exception of Bristol.

In a reversal of fortunes, leaders in growth between 2013 and mid-2016 (London, Oxford and Cambridge) are now amongst the very poorest market performers post-Brexit.

Richard Donnell, research and insight director at Zoopla, said: “Weaker growth in London, Cambridge and Aberdeen has been a large drag on the headline rate of house price growth across the UK cities index over the last year. House prices in London have been falling for almost 12 months while the rate of growth has slowed across cities in southern England, a result of growing affordability pressures, higher transaction costs and increased uncertainty.

“The strongest performing cities are outside south eastern England where affordability remains attractive and employment levels are rising. We expect current trends in price growth to continue across the rest of this year, with prices rising in line with earnings for much of the UK but lower growth and some house prices falls in London and the South.

“London will continue to register price falls, concentrated in inner London where prices have grown the most over the last decade. Prices continue to increase slowly in the more affordable outer and commuter areas of London.”