House price prediction: St Albans average to exceed £900,000 by 2030

The UK areas outside London with the highest increase in property prices between 2010 and 2020. Picture: Cash Lady/Land Registry (Image: Archant)

The city’s current average property price is £527,035 - up 71.05 per cent on 2010 (£308,126). This places St Albans in tenth place in a countdown of the UK local authority areas (excluding London) where house prices have increased the most over the past decade.

Herts features three more times in the list, with Watford in third place with 74.75 per cent growth, followed by Broxbourne in sixth (71.71 per cent) and Three Rivers in ninth (71.11 per cent).

The top two areas are both in Essex: Harlow (74.92 per cent) and Southend-on-Sea (74.85 per cent).

Researchers for short-term loans broker, Cash Lady, looked at data from the Land Registry to compare average house prices 10 years ago to those in 2020.

They calculated the percentage change between the two figures and used this to estimate the potential average price in 2030.

The data presented a very different picture at the other end of the scale, with prices in 13 local authorities lower than they were 10 years ago.

Ards and North Down in Northern Ireland had the bleakest forecast: with prices falling by 7.73 per cent from £169,689 to £156,576 over the last decade, the projection is for a fall to £144,476 by 2030.

Aberdeen was second on the ‘lowest rise’ list with a fall of 7.47 per cent, followed by Inverclyde (-5.81 per cent).