Britain's housing market is booming, and as demand continues to outstrip supply the price of property is rising.
Average house prices hit a new record high in April, data from Rightmove shows, with the South West seeing England’s largest increase in the cost of homes.
New data from the property website has revealed the top hotspots in Britain for asking prices. According to Rightmove, Bath has seen the biggest increase in asking prices of any UK city over the last year - rising 15% to £558,018.
Truro, in Cornwall, ranked second on the list, with asking prices jumping 14.8% to £323,209, while Southend-On-Sea - the UK's newest city after being granted city status earlier this year - was third, with a rise of 13.4% to £343,033.
The top five city asking price hotspots were all in coastal and countryside areas, highlighting the balance many buyers are looking to find between being near to work and city amenities, and having more space.
The mismatch of supply and demand is leading to the rises, Rightmove said. In the South West, the number of properties available has dropped by 39% compared to last year.
Glasgow is the most competitive city to buy a home, measured by number of people enquiring about each available property, followed by Stirling and Sheffield.
Exeter has seen the biggest increase in the level of buyer competition since last year, with competition more than doubling over the last year to more than 110%. Lancaster is the second competition hotspot (+100%) and Worcester is third (+99%).
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data, said: “Since the pandemic started, we’ve been tracking interesting changes in buyers’ relationship with cities. In the first stages of the pandemic, we saw the popularity of some major cities like London temporarily drop as more people looked for more space.
"However, for other cities like Bath or Plymouth, which perhaps have easier access to the coast and countryside, we saw demand really soar when the market reopened in 2020. Initially, the supply of homes available kept up with some of this surge in demand, steadying asking prices.
“Now, we’re still seeing really high buyer demand for cities like Bath, Plymouth and Truro, but the number of new homes coming onto the market hasn’t been able to keep up with the buyers enquiring, which has led to asking prices accelerating over the last year.”
