Upturn in UK Property Values

 

There was a 0.9% rise in house prices on a monthly basis in January.

This comes off the back of two monthly price drops in a row and gives an annual rise of 6.3%, leaving the average property asking price at the start of 2023 at £362,438.

Additionally, the number of would-be buyers contacting agents being up 4% on January 2019, while the number of people looking to buy contacting estate agents was 55% higher than the two weeks before Christmas 2022, making for the biggest ‘New Year bounce’ for this metric since 2016.

The numbers certainly suggest that activity has bounced back after Christmas and agents will now be busy trying to match the likely revised expectations of buyers and sellers as we move towards the important spring season.

It is expected that the full effect of affordability constraints and last year’s mortgage rate rises will hold back some segments of the market in the first half of the year, but the outlook is positive.

After two months of falling asking prices, it’s tempting to see this as a change of market dynamics, but that’s likely to be unrealistically optimistic. January always tends to see a bounce in the market, as people decide to make change in the new year, so this may just be a blip.

The return of more buyers is worth keeping an eye on. It may be that some of those who fled the market when mortgage rates went through the roof have been persuaded to come back as those rates have come down from the peak.

The return of buyers could mean house price falls aren’t quite as bad as had been predicted.

If you are in need of expat mortgage advice, please do make contact and one of our independent advisers will be happy to help.