According to the Halifax House Price Index, the prices of houses in the UK went up 2.1% in November as compared to last year, with prices at an average of £234,625, exceeding February’s £234,195, this year’s previous highest. Gains from November have recovered losses from the preceding months and have brought a stop to the industry’s diminishing growth. House prices have also been appreciating at a rate of 1.0% since October.
According to Russel Galley, Halifax’s Managing Director, “Prices are now up by £3,904 since the start of the year. While a degree of uncertainty remains evident, it’s also clear that buyers and sellers are responding to factors such as improved mortgage affordability and the limited supply of available properties.”
“It is these issues which we believe will continue to underpin the resilience evident in the market for most of 2019. Over the medium term we expect the emerging trend of modest gains to continue into next year.”
The growth of the country’s capital is crucial. London’s observed annual growth, according to Lucy Pendleton, co-founder and director of independent estate agents James Pendleton, has “started to bubble away again”.
She further states that, “In the capital, a big jump in the number of sales going to best-and-final offers is going hand in hand with increasing footfall through front doors as buyers’ appetites return.”
“Steady year-on-year growth in transaction levels of late is also adding to confidence that recent outright annual falls in price, particularly in London and the South East, won’t necessarily become a self-fulfilling final destination for other regions of the country, many of which have continued to rise in value.”
A renewed energy by the start of the new year. Jonathan Hopper, managing director of Garrington Property Finders says that “regardless of the familiar pattern of halting progress and widening polarisation between buyers, homes are becoming steadily more affordable.”
According to him, “For now, the election has brought forward the traditional December slowdown, adding to the build-up of delayed demand...” and that, “This is likely to give estate agents plenty of free time in December, but a clear election result next week could turbocharge the typical New Year surge in demand.”
“The property market continues to hold up its head after a year it would rather forget, and an end to Britain’s political limbo could deliver a January jumpstart.”
Source
https://www.cityam.com/uk-house-price-growth-picks-up-in-november/
