THE average price for a house price in Denbighshire is £192,665.

This is a rise of 13.6 per cent based on this time last year.

The figures, released from Principality Building Society’s Wales House Price Index for Q4 2019, demonstrates the rise and fall in house prices in each of the 22 local authorities in Wales.

House prices in Denbighshire have risen at the highest rate across Wales between December 2018 to December 2019.

Denbighshire also had the highest growth rate in the last quarter (October – December 2019) across Wales of 12.2 per cent.

Gwynedd reached a new peak price of £190,868 rising 3.3 per cent annually. Conwy rose by two per cent on this time last year to an average house price of £193,520.

House prices in Anglesey dipped at the end of 2019 to an average price of £198,296, a drop of 2.1 per cent annually and 5.9 per cent quarterly.

In 2019, the average house price in Wales grew by 3.3 per cent since December 2018 to a new peak price of £193,254.

Over the quarter in Wales (October – December 2019), house prices rose by 1.7 per cent.

Despite house price growth in 2019, house sales were down by 6 per cent in 2019 in Wales compared to the previous year.

Principality Building Society say the reduction is likely to be due to the uncertainties associated with Brexit and then latterly the December General Election.

Tom Denman, Chief Financial Officer at Principality Building Society said: “It’s been a decent year for average house price growth in Wales, mainly supported by historically low interest rates, a shortage of housing supply and relatively high employment. First time buyers were the driving force behind housing sales, with holiday homes also performing well.

“Although Brexit uncertainty and the General Election had a greater impact on the housing market in the south of England, sales were still down by six per cent in Wales in 2019 compared with 2018. Now that there is a bit more clarity politically, we will wait to see if house sales pick up in 2020, although we anticipate continued modest growth in terms of house prices as a whole.”

In the past decade (December 2009-December 2019), house prices in Wales have risen by 24.5 per cent. Over this same 10-year time span, the CPIH index for consumer price inflation has increased by some 22.6 per cent. This means that the average house price in Wales has grown in ‘real’ terms by just 1.9 per cent in the past decade.

While the top nine authorities in terms of growth are all located in the South-East corner of Wales, including Cardiff (41.2 per cent), Torfaen (37.7 per cent) and Newport (33.4 per cent), the ‘top’ location for house price growth in North Wales is Denbighshire, at 23.5 per cent.