St David is the Patron Saint of New Builds as Wales Ranks Top for House Price Growth

Happy St David’s Day! To mark the occasion, we’ve taken a deeper dive into new build price growth across the UK – where Wales and St David rank the highest compared to their neighbours. To do so, we analysed new build house price data to see how each home nation compared when it came to the quality of their new build markets.

When it comes to affordability, St Patrick and Northern Ireland rank top with the average new build currently costing £174,262. St Andrew and Scotland also come in more affordable than both England and Wales, with an average new build price of £230,033. 

Wales and St David rank third at £236,096, with England and St George home to the highest cost of getting on the new build ladder (£327,486). 

However, when it comes to the return on your investment, Wales rather fittingly ranks as the best new build market this St David’s Day. 

Over the last year, new build homes have increased by an average of 7.3% across Wales, the highest of all home nations. The nation has marginally outperformed Scotland where the new build market has seen values increase by 7.2% annually, with Welsh new build price growth climbing considerably when compared to both England (6.3%) and Northern Ireland (4.1%). 

However, this isn’t a recent rise to the top for the Welsh new build sector. HouseScan also looked at how each market has performed over the last five years. 

Wales again ranks top, with new build house prices up 33.1% since 2015, increasing at an average rate of 5.9% a year. 

England has performed slightly better than Scotland since 2015, up 27.4% in total and 5% on average each year compared to a total increase of 27.2% in Scotland where prices have averaged 4.9% on an annual basis. 

Northern Ireland has seen the lowest growth in the last five years, up 24.9% in total at an average annual rate of 4.6%.

Founder and Managing Director of HouseScan Harry Yates, commented:

“It’s perhaps fitting that Wales should currently top the table for new build house price growth on St David’s Day. That said, the strength of the new build sector is pretty clear whichever nation you look at and regardless of whether it’s the last year or five.

Although you will find yourself paying a property price premium at purchase, the new build sector continues to repay those investing within the sector with consistently strong price growth. So this slightly larger financial investment at the initial stage of homeownership is well worth it when considering the long term view.”