House prices in Dacorum have dropped slightly according to latest Land Registry figures

House prices in Dacorum have dropped slightly according to figures released this week.

Land Registry data shows a slight decrease of 0.7 per cent based on an average house price in the district.

But the drop does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area grow by three per cent over the last year.

The figured show an average Dacorum house price in May was £468,036 – a 0.7 per cent decrease on April.

Over the month, the picture was similar across the East of England, where prices decreased 0.8 per cent. But Dacorum was lower than the UK as a whole, where prices did not change.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Dacorum rose by £14,000 – putting the area 13th among the East of England’s 45 local authorities with price data for annual growth.

The highest annual growth in the region was in East Cambridgeshire, where property prices increased on average by just over 12 per cent, to £367,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Great Yarmouth lost over four per cent of their value, giving an average price of £205,000.

Semi-detached homes were the types of property which saw the biggest fall in prices in Dacorum in May – they dropped one per cent in price, to £540,200 on average. But over the last year, prices rose by just over three per cent.

Flats have seen the lowest decrease of 0.4 per cent monthly, against an overall annual increase of four per cent. Meanwhile detached houses have decreased by 0.7 per cent monthly, compared to an annual increase of nearly three per cent, according to the latest figures.

Buyers paid just over 35 per cent more than the average price in the East of England (£346,000) in May for a property in Dacorum. Across the East of England, property prices are high compared to those across the UK, where the average cost is £286,000.

The most expensive properties in the East of England were in Three Rivers – £588,000 on average - 1.3 times the price as in Dacorum.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea.