In statistical terms, data on housing markets for the country are overwhelmed by the sheer number of chimney pots our Saesneg (pron. sassanack and means English – Ed.) neighbours have.
Plus, without our own unique property system, we don’t even have the same excuse as the Scots for drawing attention to local conditions.
However, as approximately 1 in 20 of the UK population are lucky enough to have a rugby union team worth supporting (correct at time of writing) the principality merits at least an occasional glance.
In many ways, Wales reflects the wider UK picture. Overall, annual price movement is a boring +1%.
However, richer more affluent areas in the South East are seeing healthy price movements, whilst more rural and distant regions watch as prices continue to tumble.
Take Cowbridge – a pretty town in the Vale of Glamorgan. If they were ever to consider making a Welsh equivalent of Made in Chelsea, apart from being a very bad idea, it’s a cert that the programme would be based in this rich former market town – the only difference being that many of the ‘Chelsea tractors’ driven by the beautiful people would be… well, just tractors.
I once met someone in a pub there who seriously claimed to be 30 something in line to the throne. After making the obvious joke about there actually being no queue for the gents, we parted company – but you get the picture.
According to the LSL Acadametrics Welsh House Price Index, in the last year, the Vale saw an annual price increase of 14.7% – that’s higher even than Greater London.
At the other scale there is Camarthenshire – a region to the West of Swansea. The area is almost uniformly beautiful countryside, but with little industry or employment prospects outside of agriculture, prices fell here by 7.3%, settling at an average £133,544.
Faltering confidence, greater exposure to public sector cuts and extra bank holidays have all contributed as, like the UK, Wales is actually a mosaic of smaller markets which will experience increasingly divergent outcomes in the future.
Richard Sexton is director of business development at e.surv
