This how house prices in Wakefield have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic

The average Wakefield house price in March 2020 was £153,037, Land Registry figures show - an increase of 1 per cent on February.

The boost contributes to the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area achieve 3.7% annual growth.

Over the month, the picture was better than that across Yorkshire and The Humber, where prices decreased 3.6%, and Wakefield outperformed the 0.2% drop for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Wakefield rose by £5,500 – putting the area sixth among Yorkshire and The Humber’s 21 local authorities for annual growth.

The best annual growth in the region was in Richmondshire, where properties increased on average by 12.3%, to £234,000.

At the other end of the scale, properties in Ryedale dropped 4.5% in value, giving an average price of £229,000.

Winners and Losers

Owners of detached houses saw the biggest improvement in property prices in Wakefield in March – they increased 1.5%, to £244,691 on average.

Over the last year, prices rose by 3.8%.

Among other types of property, semi-detached properties were up 1 per cent monthly and four per cent annually, for an average of £145,693.

Terraced houses and flats were both up 0.7 per cent monthly, but the average price of a terraced house rose 3.5 per cent annually, to an average of £119,060, while the average price of a flat rose by just 1.4 per cent to £85,156.

Meanwhile, first-time buyers in Wakefield spent an average of £ 134,700 on their property – £4,700 more than a year ago, and £24,400 more than in March 2015.

By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £173,600 on average in March – 28.9% more than first-time buyers.

How do property prices in Wakefield compare?

Buyers paid 3.9% less than the average price in Yorkshire and The Humber (£159,000) in March for a property in Wakefield.

Across Yorkshire and The Humber, property prices are low compared to those across the UK, where the average cost £232,000.

The most expensive properties in Yorkshire and The Humber were in Harrogate – £304,000 on average, and twice as much as in Wakefield. Harrogate properties cost 2.6 times as much as homes in Hull (£115,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average March sale price of £1.4 million could buy 16 properties in Burnley (average £86,000).