At the time of the Brexit vote we commented that it would be the end of the year before there was an indication of its effect on property prices. The good news is that forecasts of the UK’s house price boom coming to an end have proved largely unfounded. Ultra-low mortgage rates, record high employment and a lack of housing stock keep prices moving upwards. Figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics and the Land Registry for November show an annual increase of 6.7% and a jump of ￡2,000 from October. In England prices rose by 7.2%, but Wales and Scotland lagged behind with growth of 4.1% and 3.3% respectively.
The fall in the value of the pound has certainly helped to attract foreign buyers back into central London after they were put off by high stamp duty rates. House prices in London rose by 1.8 per cent on a monthly basis in November, reversing the 1.2 per cent drop in the previous month and undoing the dip in prices of ￡8,000 between July and October. Nevertheless, annual house price growth is beginning to slow as property prices begin to reach a peak of affordability for many buyers. The average house price in London still remains significantly higher than anywhere else, however, reaching ￡482,000 in November, compared with ￡313,000 in the southeast and ￡127,000 in the northeast.
However, while trends in house price growth have barely changed since the Brexit vote, the number of housing sales has slumped. There was a 22 per cent drop in property transactions in England during September compared with last year, according to the latest data available. Estate agents have reported a sharp fall in transactions as homeowners consider it too expensive to trade up owing to stamp duty costs or wait to see what happens to the economy. The number of buy-to-let investors is also falling amid the extra 3 per cent stamp duty surcharge on second homes. This is particularly evident in London where the number of completions in London fell by 39.5 per cent to 6,698, compared with 11,065 in September 2015.
