UK house prices pull away from Eurozone’s with 11.7 per cent on the year
British house prices pushed ahead of those in other major economies towards the end of last year, official figures showed yesterday.
While cheap money combined with growth in pay and rising employment has conspired to spark a housing market recovery in some countries, other parts of the EU are still falling behind.
Only nations like Ireland and Sweden saw similar booms, as the other big economies saw the market stagnate or even fall in the third quarter.
UK house prices rose by 11.7 per cent on the year and four per cent on the quarter. A lack of demand has been blamed in areas such as London.
Ireland’s rocketed even faster at 15 per cent on the year and 6.7 per cent in the three-month period.
The only other state to exceed Britain’s market’s annual price growth was Estonia at 13.2 per cent on the year and 4.1 per cent on the quarter, the figures showed.
Overall, prices rose 0.5 per cent in the Eurozone on the year, and 2.3 per cent in the wider EU.
This points to a very poor performance in other markets.
French house prices fell 1.2 per cent on the year, but did creep up 0.9 per cent on the quarter.
Spanish prices – which were still falling sharply until early 2014 – edged up 0.3 per cent on the year and 0.2 per cent on the three-month period.
Of the big economies, Italy’s market is performing the worst – house prices dived 3.8 per cent on the year, falling in each quarter of the past year.
A handful of the smaller economies have also seen prices fall.
Slovenian house prices fell 5.4 per cent on the year, while those in Romania also dipped 2.3 per cent.
EU data agency Eurostat does not have figures available for Germany or Greece.