Northern house prices down 30% in 12 months

HOUSE PRICES in Northern Ireland have fallen by 30 per cent in the last 12 months, showing the steepest decline in property prices across the UK.

Latest statistics from Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, shows house prices fell year on year in the UK by 12.4 per cent. According to Nationwide, prices fell in September in the UK for the 11th month in a row and at the fastest pace yet.

Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide’s chief economist, said the North continues to show the “steepest correction in house prices” in the UK. “Prices were down another 10.8 per cent from the previous quarter, leaving them almost 30 per cent lower than a year ago. Even with this large fall, the price of a typical property in Northern Ireland is still only back to where it was in the third quarter of 2006.

“Between the end of 2005 and the end of 2007, house prices in Northern Ireland increased by nearly 80 per cent, compared to only 17 per cent for the UK as a whole. This meteoric rise clearly left prices in Northern Ireland even more vulnerable to a correction, and this is the context within which the recent price fall should be viewed,” Ms Earley added.

Nationwide says the average price of a typical property in Northern Ireland stands at about £159,970 (€204,000) – 3 per cent below the UK average of £161,797.

Ms Earley said confirmation that the Republic was in recession had not helped the property market in Northern Ireland.

Nationwide says there are several factors at play in the North that do not apply to the same extent in the rest of the UK. It highlights the fact that Northern Ireland had by far the highest first-time buyer house price to earnings ratio in the UK at the start of the downturn.

It says this implies more acute pressures on housing affordability and on demand in the North. It claims the North does not face the same pressures on its housing supply as some other UK regions.

Nationwide released market data yesterday showing how the UK housing market performed in the last quarter. As a whole the price of a typical property fell by an average of 4.6 per cent.

Ms Earley said the quarter-on-quarter drop across the UK is the largest in the history of the Nationwide House Price Index – which has been in existence since 1952.

“The less volatile three-month-on-three-month series has barely changed for the last three months, after accelerating in the first half of the year. This may suggest the beginning of some stabilisation in the pace of house price falls,” she added.