This is what the pandemic has done to house prices in Wakefield

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

The average Wakefield house price in March was £153,037, Land Registry figures show​ – a 1% increase on February.

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: up 1% monthly; up 4% annually; £145,693 average

Terraced: up 0.7% monthly; up 3.5% annually; £119,060 average

Flats: up 0.7% monthly; up 1.4% annually; £85,156 average​

First steps on the property ladder

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).

Factfile

Average property price in March

Wakefield: £153,037

Yorkshire and The Humber: £159,208

UK: £231,855

Annual growth to March

Wakefield: +3.7%

Yorkshire and The Humber: -1.0%

UK: +2.1%

Best and worst annual growth in Yorkshire and The Humber

Richmondshire: +12.3%

Ryedale: -4.5%