Northern Ireland’s status as the UK’s hottest property market has been confirmed as Belfast’s first dedicated property buying agency opens its doors. 

Garrington Northern Ireland is the latest addition to Garrington Property Finders, the UK’s largest independent buying agency.

Its arrival comes as Northern Ireland’s property market consistently outperforms those in Great Britain.

Official Land Registry data shows that the average Northern Ireland property rose in value by 7.5% in 2025.

That’s triple the UK average of 2.4%, and compares to the zero growth seen in South East England and the 1% fall suffered by the average London home.

Northern Ireland has enjoyed the fastest rising prices of any UK nation for the past two years, and 12 consecutive years of uninterrupted price growth. 

This progress reflects the resurgence of Northern Ireland’s economy, which grew more than twice as fast as the UK economy as a whole in the year to September 2025, and boasts the lowest level of unemployment anywhere in the UK.

Garrington chief executive Jonathan Hopper comments: “Northern Ireland has been the UK’s most consistent property story for the past two years, and the province’s prime tier is where the most interesting chapter is now being written.

“Our expansion here reflects both the market’s maturity and our conviction that buyers operating at this level deserve the same quality of independent representation in Belfast or on the North Down coast as they would expect in Mayfair, Edinburgh or the Cotswolds.”

Garrington Northern Ireland is led by Bernadette Page, boasting an in-depth knowledge of the prime areas of Belfast, North Down, the Ards peninsula and the North Coast.

She says: “The prime market in Northern Ireland has reached a point of genuine maturity, and the best of it moves discreetly, between people who know one another, long before anything reaches a property portal.

“In Belfast’s most sought-after postcodes, along the North Down coast and on the North Antrim shore, we are seeing well-priced, architecturally significant homes find buyers at a pace that would have been inconceivable a few years ago.

“Knowing where the opportunities are, and being present in the conversations before they become transactions, is what separates the buyers who secure the best homes from those who simply see what is left.”

In the final quarter of 2025, the average Northern Ireland home sold for £195,936 – that’s 7.8% less than the prices fetched 18 years ago in late 2007.

While other UK markets have seen periods of explosive property price inflation over the past decade and a half, Northern Ireland’s growth has been more measured and sustainable.