House prices fall in Shropshire, Telford and Mid Wales

​But the ​drop ​does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area ​achieve 0.76 per cent annual growth​.

The average Shropshire house price in February was £216,310.71, Land Registry figures show​ – a 0.1 per cent decrease on January.

For Telford & Wrekin the average was £169,179.98, a one per cent decrease on January – but that is set against 1.88 per cent annual growth.

Powys fared poorly for the month with house prices crashing by 6.2 per cent for the month.

The ​large drop ​contributes to the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area ​suffer a 4.9 per cent annual decline​ – the worst in Wales.

The average Powys house price in February was £177,931.02.

Scale

The figures all come before the true impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which has had a significant effect on spending power and the world economy.

Over the month, the picture was ​better than that across the West Midlands, where prices ​decreased 1.4 per cent​, and Shropshire outperformed the 0.62 per cent drop for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Shropshire ​​rose by £1,600 – putting the ​area 18th among the West Midlands’s 30 local authorities for annual growth.

In Telford & Wrekin the figure ​​rose by £3,100 – beating Shropshire and taking 14th place in the West Midlands’s annual growth list.

​The best annual growth in the region was in Malvern Hills, where properties increased on average by 6.17 per cent, to £279,000. ​At the other end of the scale, properties in Stratford-on-Avon dropped 4.6 per cent in value, giving an average price of £311,000.

Owners of semi-detached houses fared worst in Shropshire in February – they dropped 0.3 per cent in price, to £198,923.79 on average​. But over the last year, prices rose by 1.22 per cent.

In Telford & Wrekin it was owners of detached houses who suffered the biggest dip – dropping 1.1 per cent in price, to £261,238.49 on average – compared to a rise of 1.37 per cent over the last year.

Occupiers

First-time buyers in Shropshire spent an average of £​174,400 on their property – ​£1,200 more than a year ago, ​and ​£24,800 more than in February 2015.

By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £​241,900 on average in February​ – 38.7 per cent more than first-time buyers.

For Telford & Wrekin first-time buyers spent an average of £​138,600 – up ​£2,500 on a year ago, ​and ​£24,000 more than in February 2015.

Former owner-occupiers in the borough paid £​191,100 on average in February​ – 37.9 per cent higher than first-time buyers.

Buyers paid 8.9 per cent more than the average price in the West Midlands (£199,000) in February for a property in Shropshire, while in Telford it was 14.8 per cent. Across the West Midlands, property prices are lower than those across the UK, where the average cost £230,000.

The most expensive properties in the West Midlands were in Stratford – £311,000 on average, and 1.4 times as much as in Shropshire, and 1.8 times Telford & Wrekin. Stratford properties cost 2.7 times as much as homes in Stoke (£114,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average February sale price of £1.3 million could buy 15 properties in Burnley (average £85,000).