The average home in England and Wales is now increasing in value by more than £1,100 a week according to a survey compiled up to mid May.

According to the survey by property website Rightmove, average property values have risen by £4,380 over the past month, and by £14,500 (an increase of 8.3 per cent) over the past quarter.

Mike Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove said: "The owner-occupier has been doing very well this year. Just by owning the average property he or she has been making a tax-free capital gain of over £1,100 a week.”

"To earn that much from their day job they'd have to earn well over £90,000 a year."

These increases, of course, mean hefty profits for the owners, yet continued house price inflation makes it harder for first-time buyers to get on the property ladder.

The number of those buying their first-time property fell in 2003 to 29 per cent - down from 55 per cent a decade earlier.

The phenomenon of rising prices is partly seasonal, says the report, as the return of prospective buyers to the market from Easter onwards tends to increase buyer demand and push up prices.

This year, prices have risen more quickly than in 2003, when many movers and buyers seem to have delayed their house purchase decisions in the uncertain environment of the run-up to conflict in Iraq and as a result the ‘springtime surge’ did not occur.

To an extent, the market also paused for breath in 2003, as people waited to gauge which way prices would go after the record rises of 2002. Some people chose not to move, but using the build-up of equity in their properties, looked at buy-to-let investments as a means of supplementing their income.

Compared with the indices published by the mortgage lenders, Rightmove continues to report a lower annual house price inflation figure: the most recent figures announced by Nationwide and Halifax are 18.9% and 19.1% respectively. This no doubt reflects these lenders’ higher mix of low-to-mid market properties, as top end homes (which are fully represented on the Rightmove web site and therefore in the Index) have tended to see lower levels of increase than the market as a whole.

• Wales – up 4.2% this month
  The largest monthly rise this month occurred in Wales, where asking prices rose by 4.2% to £155,698, from last month’s £149,485, an increase of over £6,000.
• North West – up 3.5% this month
  In the North West, prices rose by almost £5,000 or 3.5%, to £147,585.
• South West – up 3.5% this month
  Prices here also rose strongly by 3.5% from £200,271 to £207,221.
• Greater London – up 3.1% this month
  The capital continued its resurgence since the New Year, with prices at £286,630, up 3.1% on the month.
• North – up 3.0% this month
  This month sees prices in the North up 3.0% to £133,254.
• South East – up 2.1% this month
  The percentage rises here remain lower than in most other parts of the country. Prices, averaging £231,304, remain well above the national average.
• East Midlands – up 1.9% this month
  Asking prices rose by 1.9% from £149,479 to £152,247.
• West Midlands – up 1.5% this month
  Here the average property is going on the market for just 1.5% more than a month ago, a rise of just over £2,500 from £164,895 to £167,402.
• East Anglia – up 0.3% this month
  In East Anglia, prices rose only very slightly month-on-month, from £181,095 in April to £181,705 in May.
• Yorkshire & Humberside – down 0.3% this month
  The region saw a slight decline in asking prices this month; prices also rose by a strong 22.5% year-on-year.