Average house prices increase by 12.4%

Overall, average house prices increased by 12.4% over the year to April 2022 - up from 9.7% in March.

In addition to this, the total number of processed transactions have increased when compared with the numbers seen throughout the Covid period. And, while this indicates an improvement in the quality of house price indexes going forward, it may result in revisions to previous months that are higher than usual. 

These increases follow a trend that began during the latter half of 2020, continued through to 2021 and remained strong since the start of 2022. The UK’s average house price for April 2022 was £281,000 - up from £278,000 in March 2022. 

There was, however, a drop in the provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions in April 2022 with the 106,780 figure being 12.1% lower than April 2021 and 3.9% lower than March 2022. 

Breaking down average house prices by country, Wales saw a 16.2% increase over the year to April 2022 - up from an increase of 12.2% in the year to March 2022, with the price reaching a record level of £212,000. 

Scotland also saw a 16.2% increase in the year to April, up from an 8.6% increase from the previous month, hitting a peak of £188,000. England, meanwhile, saw house prices go up by 11.9% from an increase of 9.7% - topping out at £299,000. 

Looking at the quarterly figures for Northern Ireland, the average house price increased by 10.4% in the first quarter of 2022 - with the country remaining the cheapest place in the UK to purchase a property, with the average house price being at £165,000. 

Broken down by region, the south west saw the highest annual growth in house prices - increasing by 14.1% in the year to April 2022. This was up from a growth rate of 10.5% in March 2022. 

The lowest growth rate was recorded in London, with average prices only increasing by 7.9% - up from 4.9% in March 2022.

But, despite its low annual growth rate, London’s average house prices remained the most expensive of any region in the UK - with an average price of £530,000. The north east, meanwhile, continued to have the lowest average increase at £155,000.