The average house price was 24.6% higher than in the previous year, increasing from £263,183 to £328,044 in 2014. This is a significantly faster increase than in London as a whole, which saw price growth of 13% over the same time.
Ealing, in West London, experienced the second biggest rise in average house prices with an increase of 24.5%. Nine of the ten areas with the strongest price growth in the past year are in London; Tower Hamlets (22.0%), Kingston upon Thames (21.4%) and Sutton in south London (20.7%).
Crawley in Sussex is the only town outside London making the top ten, seeing the third largest rise at 22.4%.
Sheffield is the top performing area outside the south with prices rising by an average of 13.7% over the past year. Over the past five years, the South Yorkshire city has seen a significant increase in employment, particularly in managerial, professional and technical skilled occupations, which may have been a key factor in helping to boost housing demand, and hence prices, in the city.
The towns experiencing a decline in the average value of homes over the past year are all outside southern England. Bury in Lancashire (-4.8%), Keighley in West Yorkshire (-4.4%) and Nuneaton in Warwickshire (-3.2%) recorded the largest price falls.
Four of the ten weakest performing towns are in the North West; besides Bury, they are St. Helens (-2.6%), Preston (-2.0%) and Rochdale (-0.9%).
Craig McKinlay, mortgage director at Halifax, commented:
"A number of towns and cities have recorded significant rises in house prices over the past 12 months. Nine of the ten best performing areas are in the capital, and therefore within easy reach of central London. Continuing improvements in the economy, rising employment and low mortgage rates will no doubt have supported housing demand and, combined with shortage of homes coming on to the market, will have contributed to rising property values.
"At the other end of the spectrum, several of the towns experiencing price falls in the past year are still suffering from relatively weak employment conditions, which may have had an adverse impact on their local housing markets."
