THERE was a time when the best thing for young people in Wales was the M4 to London. Now they’re looking at their regenerated cities, glorious countryside and great surfing beaches and staying put. While price rises have slowed in the Midlands and the North, homes in Wales have continued to rise, despite fears that affordability will undermine the market. According to Propertyfinder.com, consumers expect price inceases of just 2.5 per cent in Wales over the next 12 months, but interest from bargain hunters buying beyond the biggest cities has produced a respectable annual price rise of 8.2 per cent.

Away from the increasingly popular attractions of Cardiff – its night-life and the bay – property prices in Swansea rose 9.3 per cent in the year to April (compared with 3.1 per cent in the capital). Catherine Maunder, head of new development for Knight Frank in South Wales, says Swansea is catching up with its grander neighbour.

Local people are driving the market, she says. “There has been a lot of investment from locals in buy-to-let and they want to spend their money in Swansea, not Cardiff.” Knight Frank has just sold the last of 42 one and two-bed flats at Pearl House, a new Swansea development launched last September; prices of £115,000 to £175,000 tempted investors to snap up 75 per cent of the properties.

The biggest price rises, however, have been in the Valleys, the old mining areas north of Cardiff. Regeneration and new housing have varied the stock of small terraces, attracting a wave of young buyers priced out of Cardiff and Swansea. Prices in Merthyr Tydfil rose by 13.2 per cent in the year to April, the biggest increase in Wales. Yet the average house price is still £84,993.

Liverpool commuters have helped to boost prices by 11.5 per cent in North Wales to an average of £147,432. Liz Brown, of Carter Jonas in Bangor, explains: “People are saying, ‘We can’t afford the Lake District, let’s go to North Wales with its mountains and beaches and surfing’.”

The Ceredigion area, including the seaside university town of Aberystwyth, had an annual rise of 9.3 per cent, taking averages to £198,433. Iestyn Leyshon, a partner at Lloyd, Herbert and Jones, says: “People think they can still pick up a little cottage here for £50,000 and when they hear how much it really is they can’t believe it.” Traditional cottages go for £200,000 and more.

As prices have risen around Chester, buyers – especially of country houses – have gone westwards to the Wrexham area, across the border, to find better value. Prices rose by 11.4 per cent to an average £153,113, against Cheshire’s £170,910, a 6.2 per cent rise.

STAYING ON: Lisa Dafydd, 24, a pharmacist from Brecon, has just bought her first home, a one-bedroom flat in the converted Sealock Warehouse, near the quayside in Cardiff where she went to university. She used an inheritance to put down a deposit on the £115,000 flat which will be ready next January. “Cardiff has everything you want,” she says. “It’s got night life and the bay and it’s close to the countryside. A lot of people are staying on after university. It’s becoming a young persons’ city.”

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