A year in review: Where have house prices seen the strongest growth?

Typical fixed mortgage payments have also seen monumental increases this year.

Some UK towns and cities saw average property values increase by more than 15% over the last year, according to Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage lender.

“Overall 2022 was another year of rapid house price growth for most areas in the UK,” said Kim Kinnaird, Mortgages Director at Halifax.

In particular, the cathedral city of York saw the largest increase in property prices, growing by over 23%. It means that over the 12 months to November the average property in this area has added almost £70,000 to its value.

Next on the list of price risers is Woking, which saw an average increase of 19%. While this rise was smaller than York, the average property in this town added nearly £94,000 to its value, the biggest in cash terms.

According to Halifax, part of the reason why Woking saw an increase in price growth was because of its links to central London.

“We can see this clearly in commuter towns such as Woking, Chelmsford and Hove, which – with their more diverse range of properties perhaps offering better value – recorded much bigger increases over the last year,” said Kinnaird.

While the UK’s capital city remains the most expensive place to buy a home across the country, it saw the slowest property price growth across 2022.

The average property in London increased by 7.2% over the year, with residential districts like Islington only rising by 0.4% in the same period.

Kinnaird said that sluggish growth was due to “pandemic-driven shifts”, where buyers sought bigger homes away from urban centres.

While property prices have increased, borrowing costs followed a similar trajectory in the year to date.

On 2022’s New Years Day, the average two and five year mortgages stood at 2.38% and 2.66% respectively.

According to Moneyfacts calculations, borrowing £200,000 over a 25 year period at 2.38% would cost £885 per month. Today, the average fixed rate is 5.79% and would cost almost £378 extra per month over the same period.

As for the five year fixed figure, borrowing the same amount at 2.66% over a 25 year period would cost £913 per month. Today’s average figure stands at 5.63% and the same borrowing scenario would almost cost an additional £331 per month.