There are the overall figures that are talked about most widely, but the headlines often mask what is happening in the different regions.
In many ways, looking at the UK and its various achievements and challenges is a bit like looking at the different counties that make up the Europe Union; there is such a disparity between different regions.
It can look as if we have a two-speed economy between London and the rest of the UK, but actually the differences are bigger than that.
It is certain that London has an economy all of its own: house prices in greater London in quarter three were 2.5% higher than they were in the same quarter last year, while for the rest of the UK they have fallen.
London is flush with cash buyers from abroad investing in property here as a safe haven for their money, so it’s clear that rules and regulations that work here will be different than for the rest of the UK.
The biggest contrast with London is the North where quarter three house prices were 7.9% lower than they were the year before. In the North, the average house price is £136,640, while in London it is almost three times higher at £388,733.
Yet, there is no common picture across the UK, the Midlands, for example, has relatively low average house prices, but also saw one of the smallest drops in values.
What this means for next year is that it is hard to have one-size-fits-all government measures in the UK, in a similar way to how the economic policies needed by Germany would not be the same as those for Greece.
While it is good for the whole of the UK that London does well, as it emanates out of the capital, future measures for our market should look at ways of spreading this prosperity to other parts of the UK.
Not in the same way as London, but in a way where each region capitalises on the needs and requirements of the people living in and around it.
Jon Round is chief executive of First Complete
