ONS data confirms the North East is outperforming every other region – and the chance for intermediaries is real
North-east England recorded the fastest house price growth of any region in the year to April 2026, with values up 9.9%, while rent inflation hit 5.9% – both figures the highest in the country – according to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Average property prices in the region sit at approximately £162,000, the lowest of any region in England. For Paul Hampton (pictured top), owner and mortgage consultant at Approved Mortgage Solutions in Sunderland, the figures confirm what he has been seeing on the ground for months, with the North East presenting opportunities that brokers elsewhere are not yet positioned to take.
"The house prices in the North East are outstripping the rest of the country, but they're starting from a lower base," Hampton told Mortgage Introducer. "And if you look at the minimum wage over the last two years, there's been an 11% increase. If you work a full year, 35 hours a week, it's an extra £2,500 in income. That increases your borrowing by £10,000 to £15,000, so it's a lot more affordable to buy a house in the North East than it's been for a long time."
Hampton's firm is up 25% in case numbers and 21% in revenue over the past year.
The first-time buyer case
For first-time buyers, the North East presents a structurally different proposition from much of the country. At average asking prices, a 95% mortgage is accessible at household incomes that would not stretch to equivalent properties further south.
"It's actually much cheaper to buy a house in the North East than it is to rent one," Hampton said. "When you sit down with somebody and you're looking at the mortgage and all the associated costs – protecting the debt – it's coming out at say £650 to £700. To rent the same property, you're talking £895 per month."
Hampton is cautious about 98% loan-to-value (LTV) products. "I was around when they were doing 125% mortgages. If you look at the statistics from the government, about 42% of all couples split up within the first three years of them moving in together. If you did 100 of those mortgages, 40% of them statistically wouldn't last the five years, and even with a reasonable house price increase, there's probably still going to be negative equity if they've got to sell. Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
What the Renters' Rights Act is doing to buy-to-let
The Renters' Rights Act, which came into effect in May, has begun reshaping the buy-to-let landscape. Hampton draws a direct parallel with another recent regulatory shift.
"It's a bit like Consumer Duty for landlords," he said. "If you were a good landlord and you were already doing the right things, it makes no difference. It just puts a few extra barriers in your way. But there are still lots of amateur landlords. I still see people who come to us and say they want to buy a property in a limited company, and they're a basic rate taxpayer, so there's lots of misinformation about buy-to-let."
Hampton also runs GB Landlords, a separate business focused on landlord education. He expects the Act to polarise the sector further between professional and amateur operators.
The remortgage opportunity brokers are missing
UK Finance forecasts 1.8 million fixed-rate mortgages will reach maturity this year, with external remortgaging projected to grow 10% to £77 billion. Hampton, who handles approximately 60 to 80 remortgage and product transfer cases per month, sees the wave as a test of how holistically brokers are advising clients.
"I think brokers have got to get in the right mindset of calling it a remortgage opportunity and not a product transfer," he said. "Product transfer is the easiest, laziest option. You've got people coming off rates starting with ones and going to rates starting with fours. For them, one of the softeners is to extend the term. But that's a conversation lots of brokers tend not to have."
The protection gap concerns him more. "I've seen lots of posts about 'I've saved my client £180 a month' – fantastic. But if that was me, I'd have been saying, is the debt properly protected? Unemployment is on the rise, it's getting harder to find a job. Your Consumer Duty obligations should be having that conversation. For me, there's not enough holistic advice. It's just purely and simply, what's your monthly payment going to be?"
Competition and local knowledge
The North East's attractiveness has not gone unnoticed. Hampton points to the volume of new broker firms founded by advisers who trained at large national networks before setting up independently, creating a saturated market for new client acquisition, while established firms with deep back books hold a structural advantage on retention.
On whether brokers based elsewhere can serve North East clients effectively, Hampton acknowledges his own firm is exploring wider geographic reach, but face-to-face relationships remain his default preference.
"If you've got a knowledge of the area, customers can relate to you more. The younger people, particularly the first-time buyers, want to come in, they want to see you, they want to meet you. You don't get that if you work in other parts of the country."
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