Property hotspots 'outside South'

House prices in London and elsewhere are moving closer

The top 10 property hotspots in the UK last year were all outside southern England, with Crewe seeing the sharpest rise in house prices, says the Halifax.

It reported a 58% price rise to the end of June in the Cheshire town. Four of the top 10 towns were in the North West, and three in Scotland, it added.

The difference between house prices in London and the rest of the country has fallen to a five-year low.

The Halifax charts the UK's top property hotspots every quarter.

On a regional level, the strongest rises were in the North and Wales - 36% - followed by 34% in the North West.

Northern Ireland saw just 7% growth, while prices rose only 12% in London and the South East.

A London property now costs twice as much as one in the North, compared to three times as much just two years ago.

First-time buyers

On a county-wide level, Gwynedd in Wales saw the strongest gains of 45%, followed by Tayside and Borders at 43%.

Four of the top 10 counties were in Wales, three in Scotland, and the remaining three in the North.

Conversely, six of the 10 counties that had the lowest house price growth were in southern England.

Halifax chief economist Martin Ellis said: "The rapid rise in house prices over the last two or three years in northern Britain and Wales... means that increasing numbers of first-time buyers in these parts of the country now face similar difficulties to those in the south in getting on to the housing ladder.

"There are now signs that this, together with the recent rises in interest rates, is causing house price inflation in the north to slow, with prices rising by less in the second quarter of 2004 than in the first quarter in northern England and Wales."