House prices dropped slightly, by 0.2%, in Carmarthenshire in March, new figures show.

But the drop does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area grow by 10.6% over the last year.

The average Carmarthenshire house price in March was £212,963, Land Registry figures show – a 0.2% decrease on February.

Over the month, the picture was similar to that across Wales, where prices decreased 0.6%, and Carmarthenshire was above the 1.2% drop for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Carmarthenshire rose by £20,000 – putting the area second among Wales’s 22 local authorities with price data for annual growth.

The highest annual growth in the region was in Neath Port Talbot, where property prices increased on average by 11.2%, to £167,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Gwynedd lost 3.8% of their value, giving an average price of £198,000.

First steps on the property ladder

First-time buyers in Carmarthenshire spent an average of £187,000 on their property – £18,000 more than a year ago, and £67,000 more than in March 2018.

By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £240,000 on average in March – 28.1% more than first-time buyers.

Property types

Owners of terraced houses saw the biggest fall in property prices Carmarthenshire in March – they dropped 0.7% in price, to £151,345 on average. But over the last year, prices rose by 10.2%.

Among other types of property:

How do property prices in Carmarthenshire compare?

Buyers paid 0.6% less than the average price in Wales (£214,000) in March for a property in Carmarthenshire. Across Wales, property prices are roughly the same as those across the UK, where the average cost £285,000.

The most expensive properties in Wales were in Monmouthshire – £358,000 on average, and 1.7 times as much as more than in Carmarthenshire. Monmouthshire properties cost 2.7 times as much as homes in Blaenau Gwent (£135,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

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

Factfile

Average property price in March

Annual growth to March

Highest and lowest annual growth in Wales