UK house price growth dwarfs annual salaries amid 12-month jump streak
The average cost of a home has grown each month for the past year to £271,209, according to one of the country’s oldest house price indexes.
House prices grew 11 per cent in the year to July, up from 10.7 per cent in June, Nationwide revealed today.
While monthly growth has slowed to a “modest” pace – the yearly growth is the equivalent of £50,273, more than the UK’s average annual salary of some £31,000.
“While there are tentative signs of a slowdown in activity, with a dip in the number of mortgage approvals for house purchases in June, this has yet to feed through to price growth,” Nationwide’s chief economist Robert Gardner said in a statement today.
Anthony Codling, former Jefferies analyst and CEO of property site Twindig, said that while transactions are beginning to slow, house prices “are still on the up” thanks to boosted savings during the pandemic, low unemployment levels and a limited number of homes for sale.
Codling added that “in a summer punctuated by strikes resolved by wage increases and relaxed mortgage stress tests, house prices may continue to rise for the foreseeable future.”