NEWSLETTER AUTUMN 2021 Now it’s London’s turn The most recent figures from Nationwide on the UK housing market are quite an eye catcher. Year on year, prices are up 11%. The reasons for this extraordinary growth in a time of pandemic and multiple lockdowns are many. With the pandemic spreading, the government stepped in with a stimulus measure by suspending Stamp Duty on the first £500,000. An immediate saving of up to £15k in a market where the national average house price stands at £248,857 (Nationwide). This coincided with mortgage rates hitting an all time low with sub 1% five year fix deals being offered from early summer. The pandemic of course slowed the world down and this in turn led to a review, for many, of priorities and lifestyle in general, home and work/life balance being high up on the list.   The result has been a rampant domestic housing market with first-time buyers desperate to take advantage of cheap mortgages and square foot challenged city folk making rapid decisions to escape to the country and live the rural dream. As things stand there is nothing to suggest the market will not continue to rise, albeit the pace will […]

GOOD NEWS FLASH Performance indicators Since our February commentary where we made a number of predictions for the year, we have seen more data on how the market performed in 2020 and have a clearer idea on how it is likely to perform this year. Influential to this was the budget on March 3rd. Furthermore two key studies released this month by the OBR show both consumer and business confidence back to pre-Covid levels with anticipation of a huge surge in economic activity as we come out of lockdown. As a country, we also have an opportunity (albeit a rare one) to feel proud of our performance amid this pandemic thanks to the vaccination programme. We gather quite a few did not receive the February comment and we apologise if this was the case. It can be viewed here however. Market health report 2020 was the first recorded time when property prices rose in a recessionary year. Taking the various market trackers together, the UK house price indices rose somewhere between 7-8% last year. This was quite an extraordinary performance given the circumstances. Reasons are varied, but key to the context was the high level of optimism at the very […]