HOUSE prices in Southampton are rising faster than many other UK cities as more people look to live away from London.

Southampton is joining a club of other large regional cities across the country where, for the first time since 2005, house prices are starting to out-perform those in central London boroughs.

The average house price in Southampton now stands at £192,300 - a 6.8 per cent year-on-year increase outstripping some trendy London neighbourhoods.

Boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster, recorded house price growth up to March this year of only between three to six percent.

Southampton is also leading the way ahead of other major British cities including Leeds, Cardiff, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Edinburgh.

James Dennett, deputy managing director of residential properties for Goadsby, based in Southampton, believes that Southampton is an attractive place because it has “the whole package”.

He said: “This part of the world, the central south cost is a really nice place.

"We’ve got good employment prospects, the surrounding environment is good, you’re not that far from other major cities, there’s good road and rail networks, it’s all there.”

He also believes that changes to the stamp duty at the start of this year have played their part and that government schemes such as Help to Buy had helped attract more buyers.

"But he added that demand was helping to push up prices.

“I do think this trend will continue while there’s still a huge undersupply of housing.”

Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said the housing market trends now being seen in regional cities were similar to those seen in London a few years ago, as the first signs of the recovery emerged.

But one significant difference was that the central London market had been boosted by wealthy overseas investors in recent years, whereas the recovery in the regions was being driven by people who already lived in these areas.