The housing market is splitting down the middle, with a shortage of properties pushing up prices in the South of England, while selling conditions remain “difficult” in the North, according to a new report.

Whilst overall house prices across England and Wales remained level for the third month in a row, Hometrack reported “the emergence of a clear split in market conditions” between north and south.

The business information service reported price increases in 10% of postcodes, mostly located in the South of England. In the north there were more houses up for sale but weaker demand.

It also takes less time to sell in the south, with the average house selling within 9 weeks, and just 5.6 weeks in London, compared with over 10 weeks in Wales and the north.

Hometrack also warned that the UK housing market would not experience full recovery for a number of years, and that recent signs of growth were most likely “an unsustainable and short term blip”.

Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said: “When demand does start to feed back it will do so relatively slowly starting in the equity driven markets of London and the south, and only filtering down the rungs of the housing ladder as the economic recovery starts to gain momentum.”

Hometrack compiled the figures from more than 6,000 responses from surveyors and agents across the country.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under Housing Market, Mortgages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.