House prices are falling in Swindon.

The latest available Land Registry figures, which are from the January, show that the average cost of a new home was £260,354, which is 0.6 per cent less than it was in December and part of a longer-term trend that has seen house prices fall by 2.5 per cent year-on-year.

Across the rest of the south west, property prices rose by 1.5 per cent, and nationally, the UK saw a 0.5 per cent rise compared to December.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Swindon fell by £6,600 – putting the area 16th among the south west’s 26 local authorities with price data for annual growth.

First-time buyers in Swindon spent an average of £223,900 on their property – £6,100 less than a year ago, but £38,200 more than in January 2019.

By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £299,200 on average in January – 33 per cent more than first-time buyers.

Owners of terraced houses saw the biggest fall in property prices in Swindon in January – they dropped 0.9 per cent in price, to £227,093 on average. Over the last year, prices dropped by four per cent.

The cost of detached homes were down 0.2 per cent monthly and 1.1 per cent annually with an average of £452,577, while semi-detached property prices fell 0.7 per cent monthly and 2.1 per cent annually to an average of £278,655, and flat prices dropped 0.2 per cent monthly and 1.4 per cent annually to a £160,686 average.

The highest annual growth in the region was in South Hams, where property prices increased on average by 11 per cent, to £432,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Torridge lost 13 per cent of their value, giving an average price of £286,000.

Buyers paid 17.8 per cent less than the average price in the south west (£317,000) in January for a property in Swindon. Across the south west, property prices are higher than those across the UK, where the average cost is £282,000.

The most expensive properties in the south west were in the Cotswolds, which are £500,000 on average, and 1.9 times the price as in Swindon. Cotswold properties cost 2.3 times the price as homes in Plymouth (£221,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea, at £1.2 million.