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August boom for Northern Irish property

9th October 2006 | back to article listings BACK    print this article PRINT

Northern Ireland could be emerging as the nation's top property hotspot as government house price figures released today revealed its strong performance in the August housing market.

The findings of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which are released a month later than private companies' surveys, showed that the region's annual property price inflation rate rose from 18.3 per cent in July to 25.9 per cent in August.

This boom far exceeded the UK average annual growth of 7.7 per cent and as prices in Northern Ireland are still far below the country's norm, now could be an ideal time for investors to cash in on the gains being made.

The dramatic annual price increases for August in Northern Ireland far exceeded other strong performing regions in the UK such as Scotland, which saw its inflation rate rise from 9.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent and London, whose rate rose 0.8 percentage points to 7.9 per cent.

The average house price in Northern Ireland now stands at £166,398, having undergone a 62 per cent rise since March 2004. By contrast, property prices across the UK have risen 23 per cent, with the average house now costing £197,631 – some £31,233 above the Northern Irish average. Such low prices make the region ideal for budding property investors.

After having undergone 'the troubles' for over 30 years and the breakdown of the Good Friday Agreement in recent years, the political situation in Northern Ireland is now looking positive for the future, a factor which could maintain property price growth over the long run.

Last week the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) found that the IRA had disbanded its activities. Its 12th report read: "Three years ago [the IRA] was the most sophisticated and potentially the most dangerous of the (paramilitary) groups, possessed of the largest arsenal of guns and other material. It is now firmly set on a political strategy, eschewing terrorism and other forms of crime."

Although too early to tell what effect this will have on the complicated political processes of the region, the extra security brought to the area are likely to fuel house price gains as well as more widespread economic performance.

Meanwhile, analysts were please with the overall state of the UK property market. Milan Khatri, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' chief economist, said that the annual inflation rate of 7.7 per cent was "the strongest since March 2005". This is a factor which led him to conclude: "The housing market will remain robust in the coming months."

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