Where House Prices are Rising & Falling

This week many UK newspapers carried a story about the record number of people from London selling their homes and moving to the north of England. The news was based on a report by estate agents Hamptons International claiming that the proportion of London home owners selling up and moving to the north or to the Midlands has tripled since 2010. This may well be true but it doesn't seem to be having any effect on the ever rising cost of properties in the capital.

House Prices: 2010 to Present is an interactive map showing where house prices have risen and fallen in England and Wales since 2013. The map reveals that there are very few places in London and the south-east where house prices have fallen. In the north and the Midlands, despite all the newly arriving Londoners, there are many areas where house prices have fallen, although in both regions there are still many postcode areas where house prices have actually risen

The map shows how and where house prices have changed since 2013 in different postcode areas. It does this by comparing the differences in the price of houses that were actually sold between 2010-2013 and then sold again since 2014. It therefore looks at the changes in individual house prices that were actually sold twice, once in each period of time. The result shown on the map is the median house price fall or rise for all such houses in a postcode area. If you select a colored dot on the map you can view the median house price for each period in the selected area and the percentage that house prices have fallen or risen.

I can think of one caveat to the data shown on this map. As the house price data is based on homes that have sold twice in a very short period of time it may well contain a large number of homes which have been flipped. That is houses that have been bought relatively cheaply had money spent on renovations & improvements and then sold at a profit. This might tend to inflate the number of areas where house prices have risen.