"Some areas weathered the last recession pretty well considering the wider economic picture and the vast, vast majority of areas saw a quick recovery in property prices in the years that followed."
The UK was recently ‘tipped into the largest recession on record’, according to the latest data from the ONS.
This latest news may cause some home buyers to think twice before investing in a property, so Benham and Reeves has revealed the areas to have performed best in terms of house price growth during the last recession.
Benham and Reeves looked at house price growth between April of 2008 to June 2009 and found that overall, prices across the UK fell by -12.9%. Northern Ireland was hit the hardest with a decline of -23.9%, while regionally the East of England saw a drop of -14%, with London down by -13.8%. Scotland saw the lowest impact on house prices, with an overall decline of just -5.2%.
However, at local authority level, there were a total of five areas that actually saw house prices increase.
In the Orkney Islands, property prices jumped 21.7% during the last recession, while in the Western Isles they spiked by 18.4%. On the mainland, Powys in Wales saw an increase of 3.1%, while Moray and the Scottish Highlands saw increases of 2.7% and 1.4% respectively.
Scotland and Wales account for the majority of areas to have seen some of the most marginal declines in house prices. Ceredigion (-0.3%) was largely unaffected, along with Fife (-1.9%), Aberdeenshire (-2.7%), Stirling (-2.9%), Dumfries and Galloway (-3.1%), Midlothian (-3.1%) and the Scottish Borders (-3.4%).
South Lakeland (-3.6%) and Allerdale (-3.7%) were the least impacted areas of the English market, along with the Derbyshire Dales (-4.1%), Middlesbrough (-4.4%) and Chorley (-4.5%).
Westminster was the area of London to fare best with a drop of -5%, with Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth and the City of London also seeing prices fall by less than 10%.
Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr, commented: “News of a recession will no doubt bring another wave of doom and gloom from house price profits but that simply isn’t what we’re seeing on the ground and with such a tidal wave of activity returning, it’s unlikely to materialise for many many months, if at all.
"Of course, homebuyers would be forgiven for thinking twice given the recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, but as our research shows, a recession doesn’t necessarily mean a cataclysmic decline in property prices.
"In fact, some areas weathered the last recession pretty well considering the wider economic picture and the vast, vast majority of areas saw a quick recovery in property prices in the years that followed.
"For those investing now for the long-term, the value of their bricks and mortar investment should come good when they do come to sell. When you also consider the saving on offer with the current stamp duty holiday in some parts of the UK, now is a great time to get on the ladder."
