Apartment prices have risen by over £50,000 on average in the past ten years – more than twice the average for all properties.

The reason that flats nationally have outperformed all other types of property has been because of London prices. Flats in London represent a high proportion of the property market.

The average price of a flat in the UK has risen by nearly £51,000 (equating to a surge of £425 per month) from £157,172 in 2004 to £208,169 today, according to latest research from Halifax.

The 32% increase in the average price of a flat is more than double the 15% rise for all residential properties over the same period.

Detached homes (12%) and bungalows (13%) have risen least in price over the past decade.

Terrace homes have been the best performing property type in the greatest number of regions (five of the 12): North-West, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, East Midlands and East Anglia.

Semis and terraces have remained the most popular types of property purchased over the past ten years. These two types represent 60% of all home sales so far this year – up from 56% in 2004.

Detached sales have fallen from 21% of all property sales to 16% over the past decade.

The trends became more pronounced in the last five years, with prices improving across all property types since 2009.

The prices of flats again leaped most, by 43%. Terraces went up 31% and bungalows went up least, by 15%.

The last ten years have, of course, included a severe market crash between 2007 and 2009.

During this, terraces lost an average of 33% in value and flats went down by 32% – the worst performing types of property.

By contrast, bungalows lost least value at 21%, followed by detached homes which lost 26% of their value.

The Halifax says that terraces and flats are popular among first-time buyers, who have significantly increased in number.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at the Halifax, said: “There has been a significant increase in the number of first-time buyers since 2010 compared with a modest decline in the number of those moving home.  This difference is reflected in a bigger rise in prices over the past five years for those property types that are most popular with first-time buyers: flats and terraces.

“Since 2009, larger property types such as detached homes, semis and bungalows have underperformed flats and terraces. The demand for such properties has been partly constrained by a widespread lack of equity amongst home owners who bought for the first time around the peak in the market.

“Many of these home owners are still finding it difficult to finance a move to a larger home.”