UK house prices grow by 2.9% as market continues to stabilise

The UK market has yet again proved its resilience, standing strong against pre-pandemic levels and house prices continuing to be supported by the consistently high buyer demand. Halifax’s latest House Price Index has shown that values have risen by 2.9% - bringing the average house price to £298,602.

Buyer demand is still strong, and more and more sellers are coming to the market at this time of year compared to previous, which is boosting overall transaction numbers. With the upcoming stamp duty freeze due to end in April, more buyers have been spurred on to move faster than originally intended to avoid incurring extra fees, albeit at the risk of moving forward with a slightly higher mortgage rate than they might have preferred.

While mortgage rates are slowly lowering, many had hoped for a more extreme decrease than we’ve seen so far – however, the expectation from analysts is that further rate cuts will be made by the Bank of England throughout the year.

The resilience of the UK market

The UK market is always going to experience variation depending on locations and affordability, but it’s an incredibly resilient market which consistently grows over time.

Notably, the most resilient area has been the North of England, consistently outperforming the rest of the country and experiencing stronger growth, feeding into increased levels of demand and putting pressure on the continuous under-supply of property.