5:46pm Tuesday 10th July 2007
By Mark Casci
House prices in Bradford are continuing to rise ahead of the Yorkshire average - but the gulf in prices between the North and South of England continues to grow.
A new survey from Nationwide suggests house prices in Bradford grew by an average of nine per cent since the start of the year, with only Sheffield, Leeds and York enjoying higher growth.
However, the report also showed the South of England to be outpacing the North by 5.6 per cent, driven by a strong housing market in London and the South East.
The average house in Bradford now costs £170,773 compared with a national average of £181,810 according to the report.
Fionnuala Earley, chief economist at Nationwide, said: "In England the North-South gap that began opening up last year remained significant in the second quarter."
A spokesman for the National Association of Estate Agents said that all national reports should be taken with a pinch of salt.
He said: "My experience of speaking to other estate agents across the country is that it seems to me that prices are rising fairly consistently across the UK. There are pockets of high growth but generally speaking things seem to have grown at a relatively similar pace.
"Recent evidence suggests that we are moving from a seller's market to a more neutral market.
"The trouble is that estate agency has always been a local business. National companies will have some offices that are quiet and others that are really busy."
The report comes just after the Halifax released a study showing Bradford to be one of the fastest growing property hot spots in the country, with Bradford-based property group Meridian Estates claiming that growth in prices had topped 500 per cent in just ten years in the city.
Bev Gilby, of Baildon-based independent estate agents Maxwells Residential, said that a North-South divide in prices could eventually work to Bradford's advantage.
She said: "Prices remain firm in London and the South-East.
"A cooling-off is expected later in the year because of current and possibly future interest rate rises.
"The affordability of houses in the South may restrain future price increases while the affordability in the North will remain strong.
"The ongoing significant development of Leeds and the regeneration of Bradford city centre should ensure this area continues to perform more strongly than the rest of the market, narrowing the North-South gap in the long term."
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