House prices dropped by 2.6 per cent in Gwynedd in December, new figures show.

But the drop does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area grow by 11.8 per cent over the last year.

The average Gwynedd house price in December was £215,451, Land Registry figures show – a 2.6 per cent decrease on November.

Over the month, the picture was different to that across Wales, where prices increased 0.7 per cent, and Gwynedd was lower than the 0.4 per cent drop for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Gwynedd rose by £23,000 – putting the area 11th among Wales’s 22 local authorities with price data for annual growth.

The highest annual growth in the region was in Blaenau Gwent, where property prices increased on average by 23.3 per cent, to £143,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Conwy gained 2.5 per cent in value, giving an average price of £211,000.

The average UK house price was £294,000 in December 2022, which was £26,000 higher than 12 months earlier.

It meant prices increased by 9.8 per cent annually in December, slowing from 10.6 per cent annual growth in November, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Buyers paid 3.1 per cent less than the average price in Wales (£222,000) in December for a property in Gwynedd. Across Wales, property prices are lower than those across the UK, where the average cost £294,000.

The most expensive properties in Wales were in Monmouthshire – £361,000 on average, and 1.7 times as much as more than in Gwynedd. Monmouthshire properties cost 2.5 times as much as homes in Blaenau Gwent (£143,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea.