South of England sees house sale slump with Brexit partly to blame but Northern market is buoyant

HOUSE sales across cities in the South of England have plunged by an average of 13 per cent in three years.

Leicester, Manchester and Sheffield have also been hit, reveals property site Zoopla’s latest index.

The biggest drops were in London and Cambridge, where sales slid by 20 per cent between 2015 and 2018.

But they soared 19 per cent in Liverpool and rose five per cent in Newcastle over that time.

How property market has fallen

HOUSE sale drops (in per cent):

London (-20)

Cambridge, (-20)

Aberdeen (-18)

Portsmouth (-13)

Bournemouth (-12)

Oxford (-10)

Bristol (-8)

Southampton (-8)

Leicester (-4)

Edinburgh (-1)

Liverpool also enjoyed the biggest house price rise between March 2018 and March 2019. The 5.7 per cent growth took the average home to £122,100.

Zoopla said affordability and higher stamp duty costs had affected the South, with Brexit uncertainty also a factor.

Richard Donnell, research and insight director at Zoopla, said: "House prices and sales volumes continue to increase in regional cities outside southern England.

"Prices in these cities have recorded modest gains over the course of the last decade and affordability remains attractive."

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