Getting on the property ladder in Dacorum is £28k more expensive than it was last year

The cost of getting on the housing ladder in Dacorum is now £28,000 more than one year ago.

And the sum has risen by £56,000 since December 2017.

New figures show that first-time buyers in Dacorum spent an average of £379,000 on their property. By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £569,000 on average in December – 50.3 per cent more than first-time buyers.

House prices dropped slightly – by 0.5 per cent – in December, but it does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area grow by 7.8 per cent in 2022.

The average Dacorum house price in December was £482,262, Land Registry figures show.

The picture was similar to that across the East of England, where prices decreased 0.8%, but Dacorum was lower than the 0.4% drop for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Dacorum rose by £35,000 – putting the area 35th among the East of England’s 45 local authorities with price data for annual growth.

The average UK house price was £294,000 in December 2022, which was £26,000 higher than 12 months earlier.

The highest annual growth in the region was in Peterborough, where property prices increased on average by 18.5%, to £255,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in North Norfolk gained 3.5% in value, giving an average price of £319,000.

Owners of detached houses saw the biggest fall in property prices Dacorum in December – they dropped 0.8% in price, to £1,021,340 on average. But over the last year, prices rose by 6.5 per cent.

Buyers paid 32.6 per cent more than the average price in the East of England (£364,000) in December for a property in Dacorum. Across the East of England, property prices are high compared to those across the UK, where the average cost £294,000.

Fact File:

Semi-detached: down 0.6% monthly; up 8.3% annually; £558,081 average

Terraced: down 0.7% monthly; up 8.7% annually; £420,916 average

Flats: up 0% monthly; up 6.6% annually; £286,985 average

Average property price in December

Dacorum: £482,262

The East of England: £363,779

UK: £294,329

Annual growth to December

Dacorum: +7.8%

The East of England: +9.9%

UK: +9.8%