New research shows that the West Midlands has been the best performing housing market since the Bank of England started to raise interest rates in 2021, based on seasonally adjusted rates of house price growth. 

The analysis looked at house price performance across each region of Britain December 2021 and then assessed how the market is really fairing by analysing seasonally adjusted house prices during the same time period. 

Seasonal adjustment takes the seasonal variations of the property market into account in order to provide a far more accurate picture of market health. It takes into account the seasonal lull over Christmas, for example, and in doing so provides a far more accurate picture of the property market. 

The research shows that: 

·         When analysing the market based on non-seasonally adjusted house price growth, it’s the North East that ranks top, with the region seeing a 10% increase since December 2021; 

·         However, once house price performance has been seasonally adjusted, this 10 per cent increase is revised to 9.6 per cent. While this remains the second strongest market performance of all regions of Britain, the North East is knocked off the top spot by the West Midlands;

·         Since December 2021, house prices across the West Midlands region have increased by 9.4 per cent. However, once seasonally adjusted, this rate of growth climbs to 9.7 per cent, the highest increase of all regions; 

·         The research also shows that it’s the West Midlands, the East Midlands and East of England that are home to the least seasonally influenced property markets; 

·         Both the general rate of house price growth and the seasonally adjusted rate of house price growth have sat at 5.3 per cent across the East of England since interest rates started to increase, meaning the region has seen no seasonal influence when it comes to house price performance; 

·         The East Midlands and the West Midland are the only regions of Britain to have seen the rate of seasonally adjusted house price growth climb at a greater rate than general house price growth; 

·         Across the East Midlands, seasonally adjusted house prices have increased by 0.5 per cent more, while this higher rate of seasonally adjusted growth sits at 0.3 per cent in the West Midlands.

The research was commissioned by GetAgent