A new report by Rightmove has shown a rise in house prices by more than £2,400 in a month.
The housing website said the average price of a UK property on the market is over £300,000, increasing by 0.8 percent in the past month.
“This first complete month in 2018 is seeing more pricing optimism than the comparable period in 2017,” said the site.
According to Rightmove, which tracks 90 percent of the UK property market, January is its “busiest month ever”.
Most regions in the UK saw an increased price in average property price. The biggest growth was in Scotland where the monthly increase was 5.1 percent.
The South-West of England was an exception, where the average asking prices slightly fell.
In London, different boroughs had mixed results. The average property asking price in the capital is £635,376 – more than 20 times average UK earnings.
London has seen a fall in house prices by one percent compared to this time last year as home sellers are starting to become more realistic about their price demands.
“End-of-the-boom prices normally readjust more quickly if there is an oversupply,” Miles Shipside, Rightmove director, said. However, “some would-be sellers are holding back, preventing a glut of competition from forcing prices downward,” he added in the report.
Tower Hamlets, Brent, Lambeth and Hounslow were boroughs where asking prices fell over the past month.
However, in the more expensive boroughs, prices saw a jump. Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, prices increased by over 2.5 percent.
London house prices lead to difficulty for young people to join the property ladder.
“There is limited capacity for people to get onto the housing ladder, and affordability is effectively providing a very hard cap for prices to grow at the moment,” said Lawrence Bowles, a research analyst at Savills.
“The median deposit in London is over £91,000. That’s a lot of money to come by – it means there is a very limited pool of buyers who are able to compete in that market, and limited capacity to push prices higher.”