WE HAVE all heard about the north/south divide, with the country split on many issues, including property prices.

Now a report issued by Create Streets has discovered a new geographical split – on the subject of the cul-de-sac. It turns out that buying a property in a cul-de-sac is more desirable among house buyers in the north, than those in the south.

Londoners paid an average of £57,600 more to live in areas with fewer cul-de-sacs and prefer neighbourhoods with high “intersection density.” meaning they are made up largely of through streets.

In Leeds, it is the opposite: they paid a premium averaging almost £12,000 for homes in areas filled with cul-de-sacs.

Create Streets researchers looked at every property sold in a year across England’s six biggest cities – London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle. — in a bid to put a value on their various characteristics and locations.

They found that older neighbourhoods increase value in the south, with pre-1900 areas adding £58,500 to house prices in London. The opposite is true in the Midlands and north of England.

If you live in a London neighbourhood built before 1900, the research suggests your home is worth, on average, £58,500 more than those in the capital’s 20th and 21st-century areas.

The opposite is true in the Midlands and north of England: homes in pre-1900 areas sold for £3,450 less than the local average in Birmingham, £7,400 less than the local average in Manchester and £9,600 less in Leeds.

They also found that living near a listed building adds an average of £50,000 to the value of homes in London, while in Liverpool, living near a listed building commands a premium of more than £10,000.

The so-called new-build premium, where buyers are willing to pay more for new homes, does not appear to exist in any of the cities involved in the research.

An area’s “diversity” of amenities such as shops and different transport options, appears to be the most consistently valued characteristic across the whole country. And detached homes command the biggest premiums, while being close to green space is not as important as many might believe — only the highest-quality “heritage parks” add any premium to nearby properties.

Nicholas Boys Smith, founding director of Create Streets, said: “This report makes a financial case for developing our cities in a more thoughtful, organic way, and not obliterating everything as we go. The quirky little things development often erases might be drivers of value. Beauty pays, heritage pays and most people will pay more for a traditional home in a walkable, traditional neighbourhood.”