House prices hold steady ahead of the election
House prices have remained near last month’s record high, with the average asking price of a home falling by just £21 since May, to £375,110.
Last month, house prices reached a new record, after edging up each month since the beginning of the year. This price growth was being driven by more top-of-the-ladder homes coming onto the market, which are homes with five bedrooms or more, and four-bed detached houses.
But if previous years are anything to go by, we’re following the trend of prices remaining flat as we head into June. This happens as people start looking to holidays, and, particularly this year – a jam-packed summer of sport, and an impending general election.
What sort of impact is the election having on the housing market?
Of the people we surveyed recently, 95% of people said that the July election wouldn’t affect their moving plans, and they were intending to go ahead as planned. You can read more about what happened in the housing market during, and after previous general elections here.
Our property expert, Tim Bannister, says: “It’s always difficult to predict how home-movers will react to sudden uncertainty, but looking back through our data, we can see that during previous election campaigns, market activity has remained largely steady. This election has followed a similar pattern so far, and the responses from our poll of over 14,000 people also supports the data, with the vast majority of respondents saying they will carry on with their home-moving plans.”
The number of sales agreed has remained steady since the election announcement – it’s currently up 6% on the same period last year, and unchanged from when the election was called.
However, we’ve seen a decline in the number of new listings this month, given that we’re now less than three weeks from polling day and people who’ve not yet put their homes up for sale wait to see what could play out. In the two weeks prior to the election announcement, the number of new sellers was up by 6%, however this has fallen to 1% in the previous two weeks as people – particularly would-be sellers of top-of-the-ladder homes – hold off, to see what 4 July holds.
“Some potential sellers appear to be watching and waiting rather than taking action, evidenced by a dip in the number of new sellers coming to market, particularly at the top-end. This is understandable when many of these sellers have more flexibility over when they act, but overall, it appears to be business as usual for the mass-market”, Tim adds.
Read more about what’s happening in your local area in our monthly House Price Index.
The header image for this article was provided courtesy of Hurst Estate Agents, High Wycombe.
