Market Reports

It’s hard to ignore the UK’s rental market as we head towards autumn, which continues to run hot. According to HomeLet’s August Rental Index, the cost of renting a property has risen 1.4% in the last four weeks. UK tenants can now expect to pay an average of £1,261 per month.

As we progress through the third quarter of 2023, it’s interesting to note the broader trends in the property market. While the frantic conditions that accompanied the pandemic are over, the moving market is brisker than it was four years ago. To illustrate, Zoopla found property offers are received quicker now when compared to pre-Covid times.

With the longest day of the year behind us and the midway point of 2023 passed, we can evaluate how the first half of the year has treated the sales market. Predictions have come true. The red hot conditions and extraordinary price hikes of the pandemic have subsided.

Spring is one of the busiest times in property. When forming a snapshot of current conditions, we overlay our own data with that of the industry’s leading organisations. The last four weeks show the market is moving in the right direction.

The spring bounce has started to affect house prices. More buyers in the market have pushed Great Britain’s average house price up by +0.2% in April. The new average is £366,247.

March was a month of small but significant announcements. The Budget failed to deliver anything spectacular property wise but there were two points that may help home movers. The first is the continuation of the Energy Price Guarantee across Great Britain and the £2,500 threshold remains until July.

With 2023 well underway, a pattern is emerging for this year’s property market. While house price reductions may sound alarming, they’re minimal and against a backdrop of unusually high appreciation.

January serves a lesson in how to interpret the house price data that is released to the media. As the month drew to a close, two different house price indexes caught our eye. They told slightly different stories for the same month.

November brought stability to the property market, with nothing outrageous to report. In fact, positive news began filtering through, starting with mortgage rates. Financial advisers saw rates peak in October and, in some cases, begin to fall in November. 

You may have seen October’s headline that property prices had fallen for the first time in 15 months. Should this come as a shock? No, as the frequency and rate at which house prices rose during late 2020 and 2021 was unsustainable

It may read like ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ but there’s plenty of positive property news this month. If approached with calm caution, highlights can be extracted. You just need to know where to look.

What does it take to stop the UK’s apparently unassailable property market? Another interest rate rise? An energy crisis? Rising food bills? For now, apparently none of these factors is denting the determination to move home.