House prices dropped slightly in Denbighshire in January, new figures show.
But the drop does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area achieve 6.3% annual growth.
The average Denbighshire house price in January was £161,890, Land Registry figures show – a 0.6% decrease on December.
Over the month, the picture was better than that across Wales, where prices decreased 2.9%, and Denbighshire outperformed the 1.1% drop for the UK as a whole.
Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Denbighshire rose by £9,600 – putting the area third among Wales’s 22 local authorities for annual growth.
The best annual growth in the region was in Neath Port Talbot, where properties increased on average by 8.8%, to £123,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Ceredigion dropped 4.7% in value, giving an average price of £178,000.
Winners and Losers
Owners of detached houses fared worst in Denbighshire in January – they dropped 1.0% in price, to £203,186 on average. But over the last year, prices rose by 5.6%.
Among other types of property:
Semi-detached: down 0.3% monthly; up 7.3% annually; £145,953 average
Terraced: down 0.2% monthly; up 7.2% annually; £115,194 average
First steps on the property ladder
First-time buyers in Denbighshire spent an average of £144,700 on their property – £8,800 more than a year ago, and £23,300 more than in January 2015.
By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £178,400 on average in January – 23.3% more than first-time buyers.
How do property prices in Denbighshire compare?
Buyers paid roughly the same as the average price in Wales (£162,000) in January for a property in Denbighshire. Across Wales, property prices are low compared to those across the UK, where the average cost £231,000.
The most expensive properties in Wales were in Monmouthshire – £276,000 on average, and 1.7 times as much as in Denbighshire. Monmouthshire properties cost 3.1 times as much as homes in Blaenau Gwent (£88,000 average), at the other end of the scale.
The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average January sale price of £1.2 million could buy 14 properties in Burnley (average £86,000).
Average property price in January
Denbighshire: £161,890
Wales: £161,719
UK: £231,185
Annual growth to January
Denbighshire: +6.3%
Wales: +2.0%
UK: +1.3%
Best and worst annual growth in Wales
Neath Port Talbot: +8.8%
Ceredigion: -4.7%
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