English house prices aren't going up as fast as they used to. On the other hand, new numbers show that house prices in both Scotland and Northern Ireland are headed for boom times.
Nationwide thinks that house prices in Scotland and Northern Ireland will become more different from those in England and Wales. This is because house prices in Scotland and Northern Ireland have risen much faster than in England and Wales over the past year, making it more important to get bigger mortgages.
In the last year, house prices in Northern Ireland went up five times faster than the average in the UK. In the last quarter, they went up ten times faster than the average in the UK. Scotland's house prices have also gone up more than the average for the UK.
Fionnuala Earley, the group economist for Nationwide, said that the housing markets in Northern Ireland and Scotland are booming, and that their governments, like their housing markets, have become more independent from the UK.
In England, the south is once again the place where house prices are going up the most.
For the third quarter in a row, house price growth in the south of England has been faster than in the north. This comes after a long time when buyers seemed to have reached the limit of what they could afford in the south.
London is also once again the city where house prices are going up the fastest. Inflation is slowing down in northern cities, though, which is good news. Nationwide says that this is also causing problems in the areas around the capital.
Compared to last year, there is a clear pattern of faster house price growth in the south, especially in the areas closest to London. At the same time, Ms. Earley said, it is clear that all of the northern regions are slowing down.
Nationwide's quarterly house price index shows that prices in the UK fell sharply from 2.2% to 0.9% in the second quarter of the year. But growth has stayed the same every year.
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