UK cities with the strongest prospects for house price growth in 2020 revealed

Edinburgh saw the fastest house price growth across 2019 out of the UK’s biggest cities, a report has found.

But Nottingham is tipped to have the strongest price growth during 2020, followed by Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester, among the 20 cities covered in the index from Zoopla.

Annual house price growth stood at 6.1% in Edinburgh in December 2019, with Nottingham seeing the second biggest uplift at 5.2%.

The report looked at a range of factors, including housing affordability, how much sellers need to knock off their original asking prices and how long properties are typically sitting on the market for, to predict which cities could have the strongest prospects for house price growth in the year ahead.

Cities outside the south of England topped the rankings, largely due to their attractive affordability, Zoopla said.

The report said market fundamentals suggests more constrained price growth in the South of England, in cities such as Bournemouth, Southampton, London and Oxford, largely a result of affordability factors.

London ranks 16th but Zoopla expect sales volumes there to pick up faster than prices.

Average house prices are still heading downwards in Aberdeen although demand for homes there is increasing, the report said.

The index also found that annual house price growth across the UK’s 20 biggest cities averaged 3.9% in December 2019 – marking the strongest growth since September 2017.

Richard Donnell, research and insight director at Zoopla, said: “The best prospects for house price growth in 2020 are in Nottingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester.

“In contrast, we expect cities in southern England to register below average price growth as affordability levels realign to what buyers can afford. Overall, we are expecting house prices to grow on average by 3% across all UK Cities in 2020.”

Here are average house prices in cities in December 2019, followed by the annual price increase in December 2019 and the predicted ranking of each city in 2020 in terms of the strongest house price growth, according to Zoopla:

– Edinburgh, £242,200, 6.1%, 2

– Nottingham, £159,600, 5.2%, 1

– Leicester, £181,000, 4.7%, 6

– Manchester, £173,700, 4.5%, 4

– Liverpool, £122,600, 4.1%, 8

– Birmingham, £167,500, 3.9%, 5

– Belfast, £138,500, 3.7%, 18

– Leeds, £169,100, 3.6%, 7

– Glasgow, £124,600, 3.4%, 3

– Bristol, £285,300, 3.2%, 9

– Sheffield, £139,800, 3.1%, 10

– Bournemouth, £291,200, 3.0%, 14

– Cardiff, £210,800, 2.8%, 11

– London, £480,800, 1.9%, 16

– Portsmouth, £240,500, 1.9%, 13

– Cambridge, £410,300, 1.6%, 12

– Newcastle, £128,500, 1.5%, 17

– Southampton, £226,500, 0.6%, 15

– Oxford, £413,600, minus 0.1%, 19

– Aberdeen, £155,700, minus 3.1%, 20