House prices in Brighton and Hove have risen at the third highest rate in the country.

According to a report from Nationwide, buying a house in the city is now 14% more expensive than the same time last year with the average price now £356,862.

Only Manchester and London saw house prices rise at a faster rate.

Estate agents put the rapid rise down to a lack of new homes becoming available and a dismal lack of new build projects with many listed houses now being chased by two or three buyers.

 


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Julie Healy, marketing director at Callways estate agents, said: “From my experience everything’s just gone ballistic recently.

“We think there’s a lot of demand and obviously there’s a lot more confidence in the general economy. People have been holding back on selling and now that’s started again.”

She added that agents were finding more demand coming from the capital with people unable to afford London prices and looking for somewhere close by with more affordable price tags.

According to Mike Jones, managing partner at Michael Jones Estate Agents, the lack of supply coupled with a return to economic growth was creating a widening gap between available homes and those looking to move onto the property ladder.

He said the changing landscape in the market had also had an effect on the profile of first time buyers.

He added: “It used to be they were 18,19 or in their early 20s, now they’re in their early 30s and they’ve saved up for a deposit, which isn’t a bad thing.”

With the 2008 recession having put house buying on hold for most people, the re-emergence of growth in the economy had brought them back out into the market.

Andy Lees, residential partner at Graves, Son and Pilcher, |added that nowadays when a property came on the market it wasn’t unusual to see a bidding war driving prices even higher.

He said: “It’s supply and demand and there are lots of people looking to buy and when something comes to the market in an area that’s popular you get a great demand.

“We’re seeing in some situations we’re getting two or three interested parties looking at a property.”