St Albans tops house price poll according to Halifax estate agents

St Albans is the city with the highest house prices outside of London, a survey by Halifax estate agents has found.

15:23 29 November 2004

St Albans is the city with the highest house prices outside of London, a survey by Halifax estate agents has found.

The study analysed house price movements in the UK's 66 official cities and overall found house prices in cities were higher in the cities than the average price in their region.

Nine cities have an average house price that is 50,000 more than their region's average house price.

Unsurprisingly, the City of Westminster had the most expensive housing (376,347), followed by St Albans (289,656), with Exeter experiencing the largest increase over the past five years with a rise of 156 per cent to 199,018.

Meanwhile, Kingston-upon-Hull (93,697) and Bradford (94,061) were found to be the two cheapest cities in the UK for housing.

"House prices in cities tend to be higher than average and cities tend to be solid performers for house price growth over the longer term," Halifax economist Tim Crawford noted.

"There will always be demand from households wanting to be close to the services that cities provide and from employees wanting a shorter commute to their place of work."