Average house price tops £274,000 as pace of growth expected to slow
House prices climbed 0.8 per cent between November and December of last year and 10.8 per cent year on year.
According to the latest UK house price index from the Office for National Statistics, the average price of a property in the UK was £274,712.
However, real estate experts said the high rate of growth would likely to let up in the coming months.
Michael Bruce, CEO and founder of Boomin, said: “While the scales of supply and demand remain firmly tipped in favour of the nation’s home sellers, there’s a good chance that the high rate of house price growth seen during the pandemic will now subside, replaced by more incremental gains during the year ahead.”
The South West saw the fastest house price growth last year, with annual growth of 13.6 per cent, according to Savills analysis.
There was an average increase of £29,953 in London, where the average annual earnings are £34,439. This means a gap of £7,486 between house price growth and earnings.
Lawrence Bowles, director of research at Savills, added: “We saw the base rate rise to 0.5 per cent earlier this month and the financial markets expect the Bank of England to raise the base rate further this year. This points to house price growth slowing down over the course of 2022, as reflected in our forecasts of 3.5 per cent for the year.
“But with limited stock on the market to buy, an imbalance of supply and demand suggests we’ll see the momentum continue for the first few months of this year. Data from the RICS showed each surveyor had 36.6 homes available for sale in January, the lowest level since the housing market was shut down in May-20.”
Jason Tebb, chief executive officer of property search website OnTheMarket.com, said the number of available properties was still “some way short” of meeting pent-up buyer demand, while instruction numbers are rising.
He added: “Sellers coming to market now may well find considerable competition for their home from the many motivated buyers keen to move and take advantage of competitive mortgage deals.”