Alex Bannister, Nationwide group economist, said: "Over the last year the price of the average house in Swindon rose 23 per cent to just over £151,000. This compares with price rises of 25 per cent for the UK as a whole.

Someone looking to buy the average house in Swindon would now have to pay nine times the average salary for the town.

Back in the early 1990s, at the peak of the last cycle, houses were being bought for seven to eight times average salaries. The initial reaction to this is that Swindon house prices must be vastly overpriced compared to then, but it is important to remember that average mortgage interest rates, and therefore mortgage payments relative to income, are now much lower.

In 1990 the mortgage rates were up around 15 per cent and someone in Swindon buying the average house would need to spend 70-80 per cent of their salary on mortgage payments.

Today, with mortgage rates averaging 5 per cent, mortgage payments on the average house equate to just under 50 per cent of take-home pay. Although we expect interest rates to rise over the next couple of years from their current low level, they are unlikely to rise to the sort of levels seen in the 1990s.

So while the price of houses in Swindon cannot continue rising at the current rate, we think it is unlikely they will fall.

Our forecast is for a gentle slowdown in house price growth in the area, with most of the slowdown in the second half of the year."