House prices: Northern Ireland rising faster than anywhere else in the UK, but still cheapest place to buy - here's where to find province's highest and lowest property values
Property values in Northern Ireland are shooting up faster than anywhere else in the UK.
But it’s still the cheapest place to buy, with the average house in the province costing less than two-thirds of the typical home in England.
That’s according to newly released statistics from the UK’s Land Registry and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, which show that over the course of 2024 houses in the province shot up in value by 9%.
Across the UK as a whole, prices increased by around half that figure – 4.6%.
Northern Ireland still has the lowest average house price of all the UK’s four constituent nations, however, at £183,000.
The UK-wide average is £268,000, while England tops the poll with a wallet-busting typical price of £291,000; in Wales, the average cost of a home is £208,000, while Scotland skirts the closest to Northern Ireland at £189,000.
Scotland had the second fastest rise, prices going up by 6.9%, while England’s increased by 4.3% and Wales was a comparatively sluggish 3%.
The UK-wide information ties in with recent analysis from industry experts, who say people are increasingly pushed out of major metropolitan areas by soaring prices, and are looking at less central regions in which to buy.
However, the figures also reveal a huge amount of variation within the province, with a £57,000 gap between the cheapest place to buy and the most expensive.
Mid and East Antrim had the lowest property values at £161,000, the figures show, and at 5.4% also had 2024’s slowest growth in prices in the province.
Meanwhile Lisburn and Castlereagh stood out as the most costly area to buy, as the typical house there will set purchasers back £218,000.
It’s also where property prices are spiking the fastest, growing by 11.4% over the course of last year.
But there was some bad news for Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon, as the statistics show that house prices there were marginally down in the last three months of 2024 compared to the previous three months.
It was the only district in the province to show a decline, even if the drop was very slight; everywhere else showed consistent growth during the final three months of the year.
The newly-released property value figures are based on stamp duty information recorded by tax authorities.