Housing market's north-south divide 'worsening' | Business | The Guardian

Housing market's north-south divide 'worsening' | Business | The Guardian

The north-south housing divide is widening, with property sales in the south down by 42% over the past three years compared with 51% in the north, according to the Halifax. Across Britain, home sales dropped 47% since 2007, with 649,957 homes sold in England and Wales in 2010 compared with 1,222,402 the year before.

Britain is increasingly becoming a market of two halves. Over the past three years, the town with the highest fall in house prices is Newcastle, down 28.8%. But in Barnstaple, Devon, house prices increased by 4.2%. The trend continued during the past year, with big annual house price gains in Reading (10.2%), Dartford (9.2%), Brighton (9.1%) and Cheltenham (9%), compared with large price drops in Blackburn (9.5%), Keighley (9%), Castleford (8.2%) and Nuneaton (7.9%).