UK House Prices Rises Faster Than Ever Before
In December 2019, saw the highest rise UK house prices ever seen for that time of year, according to property experts, Rightmove
With an average asking price of just over £300,000, the average price of property new to the market jumped by 2.3%.
A separate index, belonging to Halifax, showed a 1.7% increase, which combined with November’s 1.2% increase demonstrated the strongest in their records since Feb 18.
Even with many people expecting a Conservative win in the General Election, and a corresponding sense of security around the Brexit crisis, most did would not have predicted such a jump in UK house prices. In fact, a poll of economists predicted a 0.2% decrease in house prices year on year.
The fact that house buyers were more confident than economists goes to show that there are a multitude of factors at play. In this case, these include a combination of high levels of employment, strong wage rises, low inflation, low-interest rates and a sharp decline in the number of properties for sale.
Some commentators are lumping these gains in with the ‘Boris Bounce’ phenomenon, seen post-election when the price of Sterling leapt up. At this point, everyone following the markets knows that they don’t like instability. While in most cases it’s true that what goes up must come down, the expectation for the forthcoming months is a period of stability.
Movers who have been hesitating over the last year are now more likely to go ahead, meaning the Spring could see a healthy period for the housing market. We do still have the actual process of Brexit to go through, so it would not be prudent to make too many predictions, but the market strength over the last month is certainly positive.
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