Property in Belfast hits bottom of UK ladder - Belfast Telegraph

By Jamie Grierson
Monday, 20 June 2011

The value of homes in Belfast has been left behind by the UK's most economically prosperous locations as they surge ahead of properties in the UK's poorest areas, a new survey revealed today.

House prices have fallen on average by 24%, Halifax said, in the 10 areas with the biggest falls in economic activity since 2008 — which include Belfast and Blackpool.

This is almost double the |average 13% decline in house prices in the 10 areas that recorded the smallest decreases in economic activity since 2008 — including Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

Homeowners in the 10 areas with the highest growth rates in economic activity per person — including Edinburgh, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Dorset — have seen the value of their property nearly quadruple between 1998 and 2008, the Halifax survey revealed.

The average house price in the 10 most prosperous areas rose by 219% over the period to 214,162, while the average price in the 10 least prosperous regions — which include Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Blackpool — rose by 195% to 165,430.

Belfast recorded both the third biggest gain in economic activity and the largest rise in house prices in the decade to 2008, but saw house prices fall by 46% over the next three years as the city recorded the second largest contraction in economic activity across the UK over the same period.