Nationwide’s quarterly house price index shows every area of the UK recording annual average increases – except for one.
The area bucking the trend is East Anglia, where prices fell by 0.8%. The building society says this was in fact the first annual decline in a region since Q2 2024, which coincidentally was also East Anglia and a fall of 0.8%.
At the other end of the spectrum, Northern Ireland continued to outpace the rest of the UK by a wide margin, with prices increasing by 9.7% over the year. This was more than five times faster than the 1.7% recorded in the UK as a whole and nearly three times higher than the 3.5% recorded in the next strongest region – the North West of England.
Despite these significant price gains, house prices in Northern Ireland are still around 5% below the all-time high recorded in 2007, while UK prices are almost 50% higher over the same period. As a result, the price of a typical home in Northern Ireland is currently around 79% of the UK average price, while in 2007 it was around 25% higher.
Scotland broadly matched the wider UK trend in 2025 with annual house price growth of 1.9%. Meanwhile, Wales saw a slight increase in annual house price growth to 3.2% and was the only other part of the UK, apart from Northern Ireland, to see stronger house price growth in 2025 than in 2024.
England saw a further slowing in annual house price growth to 1.2%, from 1.6% in Q3.
Average prices in Northern England (comprising North, North West, Yorkshire & The Humber, East Midlands and West Midlands) were up 2.3% year on year, with the North West (which includes areas such as Cheshire, Lancashire & Greater Manchester) the top performing region in England – with prices up 3.5% year on year.
Average house price growth in Southern England (South West, Outer South East, Outer Metropolitan, London and East Anglia) was 0.6%.
Annual price growth in London remained subdued, with prices rising by 0.7% in 2025, compared with a 2.0% rise in 2024. East Anglia was the weakest performing UK region and the only one to see an annual decline, with prices down 0.8%, compared with Q4 2024.
