NEW figures produced by the Land Registry have revealed a mixed picture of Andover's housing market.

The figures, which are broken down into post code areas and based on actual prices achieved, reveal a variation across Andover and suggest that high prices and rising mortgage rates have yet to put the brakes on peoples' enthusiasm for property.

While there is particularly good news for the owners of larger properties in Andover, the market for terraced homes seems to have perked up considerably.

Across the SP10 Andover post code the average price of a terraced home rose from £134,100 achieved in the first quarter of 2004 to £141,600 in the second quarter.

Prices achieved were about 3.4 per cent ahead of the £137,000 price in the same quarter of 2003.

In all three of the quarters around 100 terraced homes were sold in the Andover town area.

The most profitable type of property to own in the past year in Andover has been a semi-detached home in the SP10 2 sector of the town - broadly speaking the southern and western parts of Andover.

A year ago the average price of the 10 semi-detached homes sold in this segment of the town between April and June was only £155,585 but a year later the average price of 27 properties sold was £190,778 - a very healthy 22 per cent jump.

In the SP11 area only Ludgershall has a sufficient number of homes being sold to make any comparisons at all valid.

In the second quarter of last year a terraced home in Ludgershall fetched an average price of £115,903 compared to £117,987 in the second quarter of this year.

Across Test Valley as a whole the average house price is only three per cent higher than it was this time last year but there was a 1.8 per cent spurt this spring.

The Land Registry's figures show that Test Valley's house price inflation was the lowest of any of the districts of Hampshire over the past year.