House prices dropped by 1.4 per cent in Powys in November while there was no movement in the average cost of a home in Ceredigion, new figures show.

The drop in Powys does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area grow by 13.2 per cent over the last year.

The average Powys house price in November was £262,634, Land Registry figures show – a 1.4 per cent decrease on October. In Ceredigion it was £274,088 - largely unchanged from the previous month.

In Powys, over the month, the picture was similar to that across Wales, where prices decreased 1.6 per cent, but Powys was lower than the 0.3 per cent drop for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Powys rose by £31,000 and in Ceredigion £36,000 – putting the areas ninth and fourth respectively among Wales’s 22 local authorities with price data for annual growth.

The highest annual growth in Wales was in Caerphilly, where property prices increased on average by 17.2 per cent, to £194,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Conwy gained 6.4 per cent in value, giving an average price of £217,000.

The average UK house price edged down to £295,000 in November 2022, from the previous month's record high of £296,000.

Property prices increased by 10.3 per cent in the year to November, slowing from 12.4 per cent in October.

Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, which represents estate agents, said: "In November, our agents reported a market that was on the cusp of seeing purchasing power handed back to buyers which was a trend we hadn’t seen in months."

And Roger Evans, director of home finance distribution at Gatehouse Bank, said: “The property market is slowly becoming more favourable for buyers in some areas as rates stabilise a little following the turbulence of 2022.”

First-time buyers in Powys spent an average of £230,000 on their property – £27,000 more than a year ago, and £73,000 more than in November 2017.

By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £294,000 on average in November – 27.9 per cent more than first-time buyers.

In Ceredigion first-time homeowners spent an average of £249,000 – £33,000 more than a year ago, and £82,000 more than in November 2017.

Former owner-occupiers paid £302,000 on average in November – 21.5 per cent more than first-time buyers.

Owners of detached houses saw the biggest fall in property prices Powys in November – they dropped 1.5 per cent in price, to £353,590 on average. But over the last year, prices rose by 13 per cent.

In Ceredigion, it was owners of semi-detached houses who saw the biggest rise in property prices in November – but that was still only an increase of 0.2 per cent, to £229,999 on average. Over the last year, prices rose by 15.8 per cent.