The UK's Cheapest And Priciest Towns

As a "Statto" type, I get a thrill out of poring over big Excel spreadsheets full of lovely data (yes, I know, I'm a sad loser).

Hence, I was delighted when I came across a huge database on the Halifax website with information on house prices by postal town. Aha, I thought, here's a chance to find out which are the cheapest and most expensive UK towns to inhabit!

According to data from the Halifax House Price Index, these are the ten towns with the highest average house prices at the end of 2005 (note that this survey excludes properties worth over £1 million and towns with a sample size of under fifty properties in the Halifax database):

SAMPLE SIZE: 492 towns

It's no surprise to see that all ten towns are in southern England, mostly in the commuter belt around London. I live in one of these boroughs, where a modest three-bedroom terraced family home would set you back around half a million pounds -- ouch!

In fact, the 76 most expensive towns in the UK are all in England, with Chepstow in Gwent the only town outside of England in the top hundred (76th, with an average price of £225,000).

At the other end of the scale, these ten towns have the lowest average house prices:

Again, it's no surprise to find the cheapest towns in Scotland, the North of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Now let's look at house-price increases across these towns. The Halifax data goes back to 1988, so we'll look at average price rises over the seventeen years from 1988 to 2005.

Here are the ten towns with the strongest house-price growth over this period, in £ terms:

SAMPLE SIZE: 435 towns

So, residents of genteel parts of Surrey, Middlesex and Kent have reaped handsome rewards in the house boom. At the other end of the scale, we have the following towns:

As you can see, these towns are in the North of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which shows that the north-south housing divide is still alive and well, despite strong house-price growth outside of the Southeast.

Finally, let's look at house-price increases in percentage terms. Here are the top ten towns:

Although leafy Weybridge tops this table, all of the other big risers are to be found in the North of England (bar Armagh in Northern Ireland). At the other end of this table, we have the following:

Thus, in percentage terms, the losers in the recent house-price boom are located in the South and East of England, with coastal towns featuring heavily in this category.

So, there you have it: a guide to the winners and losers in terms of house prices since 1988. Of course, these figures tell us nothing about what will happen to house prices in the future, so don't read too much into them!

Still, I'm fortunate enough to have bought a house in one of these boom areas in 1992, which I sold for a profit of more than 250% in 2005. However, these days, as a "sell to renter", I've leapt off the housing ladder, because I expect house prices to fall in the coming years, so be warned!

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