HOUSE prices dropped slightly, by 0.8%, in Redditch in June, new figures show.

But the drop does not reverse the longer-term trend, which has seen property prices in the area achieve 5.2% annual growth.

The average Redditch house price in June was £227,705, Land Registry figures show – a 0.8% decrease on May.

Over the month, the picture was worse than that across the West Midlands, where prices increased 5.7%, and Redditch underperformed compared to the 4.5% rise for the UK as a whole.

Over the last year, the average sale price of property in Redditch rose by £11,000 – putting the area 33rd among the West Midlands’s 34 local authorities for annual growth.

The best annual growth in the region was in Shropshire, where property prices increased on average by 20.9%, to £256,000. At the other end of the scale, properties in Warwick gained 3.1% in value, giving an average price of £325,000.

Buyers paid 1.6% less than the average price in the West Midlands (£231,000) in June for a property in Redditch. Across the West Midlands, property prices are lower than those across the UK, where the average cost £266,000.

The most expensive properties in the West Midlands were in Stratford-on-Avon – £342,000 on average, and 1.5 times as much as in Redditch. Stratford-on-Avon properties cost 2.7 times as much as homes in Stoke (£126,000 average), at the other end of the scale.

The highest property prices across the UK were in Kensington and Chelsea, where the average June sale price of £1.2 million could buy 13 properties in Burnley (average £99,000).