HOUSE prices ended last year around £15,000 higher on average than when the year started, according to an official report.

The typical UK property value was £220,000 in December, marking a £15,000 increase compared with a year earlier, said the report, produced jointly by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) with other bodies.

The main contribution to the increase in UK house price growth came from England, where house prices increased by 7.7% over the year to December, taking the average price in England to £236,000.

Wales saw house prices increase by 4.7% over the year to stand at £148,000. In Scotland, the average price increased by 3.5% over the year to stand at £142,000, while in Northern Ireland the average house price was £125,000, an increase of 5.7% over the previous 12 months.

Across the English regions, house price growth over the past year has ranged from an 11.3% increase in East Anglia to a 4.1% rise in the North East. In London, house prices have increased by 7.5% over the past year, to reach £484,000 on average.

House prices across the UK as a whole increased by 7.2% in the year to December, accelerating from a 6.1% rise recorded in the year to November. Prices increased by 1.4% month-on-month.

An average first-time buyer in Britain faces paying 7% more for a property than they did a year ago, with the typical price paid by this sector now at £184,973, the report said.

Richard Snook, a senior economist at PwC, said the £15,000 average increase in house prices seen over 2016 compares with an average UK salary of £28,000.

He said: "The good news for prospective future buyers is that we do expect a gradual slowdown in house price inflation in 2017 with our scenarios ranging from between 2% and 6% growth.

"There are several headwinds affecting the housing market over the next couple of years: uncertainty related to Brexit, rising consumer price inflation with consequent downward pressure on real earnings growth and, in the longer run, the potential for a supply increase due to initiatives in last week's (housing) white paper."

Jeremy Leaf, a north London estate agent and a former residential chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics), said of the figures: "These numbers bear out what we have seen in other recent surveys - that prices, although still modestly rising, are very much underpinned by a shortage of stock and a dearth of transaction activity."

The report also showed that the local authority experiencing the largest annual price growth in the year to December was the Shetland Islands, where prices increased by 26.1% to stand at £179,000 on average.

The report cautioned that low numbers of house sales in some areas, such as the Shetland Islands, can lead to volatility in the figures.

The lowest annual price growth was recorded in Aberdeen, where prices fell by 9.8% to an average of £168,000.