I got very excited yesterday morning – a tweet from the Stockport Express said house prices in the borough were up 47% in just a year.  When I thought about it for a moment, that did seem a little unlikely, and the Express later corrected the story (so good for them) to say that house sales are up 47%.

That’s still very good news, even if my visions of an early retirement living the high life will have to go on hold for a while longer.

The Halifax study [pdf] reveals good news for the whole country.  Across England and Wales, just three towns saw no increase in house sales between the first six months of 2009 and the same period in 2010, with only Blackpool showing a fall (and that of only 1%).

Of the top 20 towns for house sales growth, 16 are in the south.  Stockport is one of only two in the north west (the other is Chorley) and comes in at 13th for the whole country.

That’s good news for Stockport – more people want to buy houses in our area than across most of the rest of the country.

And I must point (yes, I’ve said it before), these things don’t happen by magic.  The work Stockport Council does, both on its own and with partners like the other Greater Manchester authorities, is absolutely critical to making the borough somewhere people want to live.  That means a place that’s pleasant to live, with jobs available, good transport links and a good reputation.

So if you wonder whether all the work on things like Stockport Boost are worth it – yes they are!  The relatively small amounts of money we spend on them in taxes is repaid many times over in making our residents wealthier.

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