A YORK hamlet is one of the country's top hotspots for rising house prices, according to a computer-based prediction.

Technical Forecasts Ltd, of Bognor Regis, has listed Crockey Hill, on the A19 south of York city centre, as one of about ten places where it expects the value of semi-detached and detached houses to soar. Its prediction, which is used by development companies and others, states that the York hamlet could see prices go up by 60 per cent in the next three years.

Director Mandy Bradley said her company used powerful computers and 125 different statistics, including Land Registry records and economic indicators, to predict how house prices may change for every postcode in England and Wales.

Though she could not say whether the computer predictions would come true, tests covering two years had shown they were reasonably accurate.

But last month, business information company Experian predicted that house prices in Bishopthorpe, just up the road from Crockey Hill, would fall by ten per cent over the next year because its property market had "overheated".

Kevin Hollinrake, director of Hunters estate agents, York, said buyers would have great difficulty finding a house for sale at Crockey Hill because it was so small.

He urged house hunters to use their common sense and choose properties because they liked them or the area, and rather than relying on future price predictions whatever their source.

Updated: 11:26 Wednesday, April 10, 2002