House prices set to rise 10% annually
House prices across the UK's 20 biggest cities could be surging at a rate of 10% by the end of 2015, according to property analysts Hometrack.
Property values across the 20 major cities increased by 8.4% year-on-year in June to reach £226,200 on average, Hometrack said.
But looking ahead, the rate of growth looks set to move higher as a tight supply of properties for sale pushes the annual rate of price growth towards 10% as the economic recovery spreads, the report said.
Oxford and Cambridge both recorded annual house price growth above 10% in June, with rates of 10.3% and 11.6% respectively. In London, prices pushed up by 9.8% year-on-year in June and in Bristol they recorded an annual increase of 9.2%.
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In Belfast, prices increased by 6.5% year-on-year in June, while in Glasgow they increased by 5.5% and in Manchester they saw 5.7% annual growth.
Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said: "Rising demand for property against a backdrop of low supply continues push city level house prices higher...
"While house price growth might moderate slightly (in the second half of the year), it looks increasingly likely that city level house price growth will return to double digits by the year end."
Earlier this month, Bank of England governor Mark Carney suggested that interests could start to increase around the turn of the year.
Mr Donnell said that if this were to happen, demand in the housing market would cool and there would be a slowdown in house price growth.
The 20 cities covered by the research are Oxford, London, Glasgow, Cambridge, Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Bournemouth, Southampton, Newcastle, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham, Belfast, Cardiff and Aberdeen.
