Diss house prices buck national trend

Diss has seen the third largest house price increase in towns across country in the past year, with prices up by almost eight per cent in a year when house price inflation across the UK fell to one per cent, according to a new report.

Diss was just behind the seaside town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Smethwick in the West Midlands for property price growth in 2018.

The figures were compiled by the property website Zoopla, which looked at price performances in towns with their own post codes and 10,000 properties or more, in 2018.

It found the current average house value in Diss is £311,486, with a growth of 7.89 per cent.

This is behind Ryde in the Isle Of Wight at £242,016 (10.24 per cent rise) and Smethwick, West Midlands at £163,627 (9.67 per cent rise)

This, according the website, compares, for instance, with a decline of 1.7 per cent in London prices, and 0.5 percent in the east of England as a whole.

The biggest price falls meanwhile were in Alnwick, Northumberland, best known for its location in the Harry Potter films, where values dropped by 6.6 per cent, Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, Nantwich in Cheshire and Eastleigh in Hampshire, which all recorded price falls of 5 per cent or more.

Zoopla, say, in a relatively subdued year for the UK property market, prices nationally rose by an average of 1.02 per cent during 2018.

This added £83 billion to the total value of British residential property, which it estimated was worth £8.29 trillion n by the end of the year.

Scotland was the fastest-rising region, with prices up 6.4 per cent to an average of £195,739, followed by Wales, where prices rose 3.9 per cent to £192,362.

Brexit fears in recent months are said to have contributed to the national figures with most of the major house value indices showing flat or falling prices.

The Brexit effect is also hitting house prices outside the UK, with it being blamed for Ireland’s property market coming to a sudden halt in the final quarter of 2018 as prices flatlined for the first time since the property crash of 2007-08.

Richard Donnell of Zoopla said: “This latest analysis into the value of Britain’s housing stock shows that while the overall value has grown by one per cent this is slower than the 3.5 per cent growth in 2017.

“The slower growth is down to the value of housing falling in London and the east of England while values have increased across the rest of the country. Scotland and Wales are where values have grown more than the national average.”

Forecasters are anticipating another year of virtually flat house prices in 2019, with most pencilling in gains of zero to 2 per cent.

Top five towns for property price growth, according to the property website.

(average per cent increase in value since January 2018)

1. Ryde, Isle Of Wight: £242,016 (10.24 per cent)

2. Smethwick, West Midlands: £163,627 (9.67 per cent)

3. Diss, Norfolk: £311,486 (7.89 per cent)

4. Broadstairs, Kent: £333,212 (7.63 per cent)

5. Pontypool, Torfaen: £162,319 (7.52 per cent)

Bottom five towns for property price growth

(average per cent decrease in value since January 2018)

1. Alnwick, Northumberland: £238,802 (-6.58 per cent)

2. Biggleswade, Bedfordshire: £329,206 (-6.49 per cent)

3. Nantwich, Cheshire: £276,647 (-5.60 per cent)

4. Eastleigh, Hampshire: £337,784 (-5.19 per cent)

5. Hebburn, Tyne & Wear: £135,835 (-4.88 per cent)