This how house prices in Crawley changed in May and how they compare to the rest of the UK

But the drop does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area achieve 1% annual growth.

The average Crawley house price in May was £284,931, Land Registry figures show – a 0.3% decrease on April.

SEE ALSO New £350m Center Parcs proposal is ‘potentially very exciting’ | This is when and where you can get a Covid-19 vaccination in Crawley this week | This when the railway between Three Bridges, Brighton and Lewes will close for nine days for £11 million upgrade

Over the month, the picture was worse than that across the South East, where prices increased 1.4%, and Crawley underperformed compared to the 0.9% rise for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Crawley rose by £2,800 – putting the area 68th among the South East’s 70 local authorities for annual growth.

The best annual growth in the region was in Oxford, where property prices increased on average by 16.1%, to £456,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Chichester lost 2.7% of their value, giving an average price of £396,000.

Winners and Losers

Owners of detached houses fared worst in Crawley in May – they dropped 0.7% in price, to £565,787 on average. But over the last year, prices rose by 1.1%.

Among other types of property:

- Semi-detached: down 0.1% monthly; up 1.7% annually; £366,786 average

- Terraced: down 0.6% monthly; up 1.7% annually; £282,881 average

- Flats: up 0.2% monthly; down 0.4% annually; £186,747 average

First steps on the property ladder

First-time buyers in Crawley spent an average of £257,500 on their property – £2,100 more than a year ago, and £19,300 more than in May 2016.

By comparison, former owner-occupiers paid £321,200 on average in May – 24.7% more than first-time buyers.

How do property prices in Crawley compare?

Buyers paid 18.6% less than the average price in the South East (£350,000) in May for a property in Crawley. Across the South East, property prices are higher than those across the UK, where the average cost £255,000.

The most expensive properties in the South East were in Elmbridge – £646,000 on average, and 2.3 times as much as in Crawley. Elmbridge properties cost 2.9 times as much as homes in Southampton (£221,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average May sale price of £1.2 million could buy 12 properties in Burnley (average £100,000).

Factfile

Average property price in May

Crawley: £284,931

The South East: £350,016

UK: £254,624

Annual growth to May

Crawley: +1%

The South East: +9.1%

UK: +10%

Best and worst annual growth in the South East

Oxford: +16.1%

Chichester: -2.7%