NEW data has revealed the most and least expensive neighbourhoods to buy in North Somerset.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed that the cost of buying a property varies dramatically from area to area.

In North Somerset, the average house cost £315,000 in 2022 – up from £300,000 a year before.

The number of properties sold dropped, from 4,943 in 2021 to 3,259 last year.

As a result, many buyers are shaving off an average of 5% of the original asking price in order to achieve a sale and make repayments more manageable.

The Winford neighbourhood is classed as North Somerset's priciest, with a median value of £588,500 among the 48 sales in the area last calendar year.

Next down the list was the Long Ashton area, with median house prices of £580,000, closely followed by Backwell, with prices of £575,000 as of 2022.

In contrast, the Weston-super-Mare Central neighbourhood saw the lowest house prices, with buyers paying an average of £166,000 across 160 sales last year.

This was followed by Weston-super-Mare Hillside and Weston-super-Mare South, where buyers spent £185,000 and £196,000 respectively. It seems that, in the grand scheme of things, properties in the seaside town are a steal.

Richard Donnell, executive director of research at the property search website Zoopla, said: "The increase in mortgage rates is having a bigger impact on the number of sales rather than house prices so far.

"There are big regional variations with market activity holding up better in Scotland, the North East and London while sales have increased more slowly in England regions across the south of England.

"House prices are starting to post small falls in higher value markets where average values are over £400,000 – in more affordable markets prices are still rising year on year, albeit at much slower rates than a year ago."

These figures are also reflected nationally. There were 700,000 sales across England and Wales in the year to December 2021, which was down from a recent peak of more than 1.1 million in the year to September 2021.

Overall, house prices have remained steady, with a median price of £280,000 last year – a £5,000 increase on the year before.