HOUSE prices in Gwynedd dropped by four per cent in May, according to statistics.

The latest data from the Office of National Statistics shows that the average property in the area sold for £141,784 - significantly lower than the UK average of £226,351.

Across Wales, property prices have risen by one per cent in the last year, to £148,894.

The region underperformed compared to the UK as whole, which saw the average property value increase by three per cent.

The data comes from the House Price Index, which the ONS compiles using house sale information from the Land Registry, and the equivalent bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Gwynedd saw the ninth-largest average price drop of any authority in the UK over the last 12 months, and the average homeowner will have seen their property jump in value by around £6,000 in the last five years.

The figures also showed that buyers who made their first step onto the property ladder in Gwynedd in May spent an average of £124,166 - around £5,000 more than it would have cost them five years ago.

Between April last year and March this year, the most recent 12 months for which sales volume data is available, 1,739 homes were sold in Gwynedd, 2 per cent more than in the previous year.

The highest house prices in the country in May were found in Kensington And Chelsea, where properties sold for an average of £1,326,653 - 17 times the cost of a home in Burnley, where the average property cost just £79,119.