Market Reports

New year, new-look property market? With January complete, signs are emerging of what the buying, selling and lettings trends will be in 2023. Zoopla is first out the blocks, with news on asking prices versus paid for prices.

December saw signs that the sales market was regulating. Rightmove’s latest figures revealed the average price of a property coming to market dropped by 2.1% in the final weeks of 2022. This equated to -£7,862, indicating sellers are adjusting their price expectations in line with current sentiment.

We have been holding our breath to see how political and economic changes have affected the property market. Thankfully, whispers of a crash have proven unfounded and we much prefer Zoopla’s take on conditions. The portal says we’re experiencing a property market ‘shake out’.

It was all change across the UK in October, starting in England. It was only a month ago that we wrote about a new Prime Minister and Chancellor at the helm. Unbelievably, we are reporting the very same news a matter of weeks later, swapping Liz Truss for Rishi Sunak and Kwasi Kwarteng for Jeremy Hunt.

September was a month of disruption. With a new Prime Minister and Chancellor at the helm, changes marked the inauguration of this new partnership. First up alterations to the stamp duty thresholds.

August is usually a time for lazy days and annual holidays but this year, the month failed to read the script. There has ­not been the traditional pause in home moving activity this summer. As a result, there are some surprising statistics to digest.

July provided the experts at Zoopla with the perfect opportunity to evaluate how the last two years have affected the UK property market. Its headline statistic – pandemic housing boom creates 270,000 property millionaires – won’t apply to the majority of homeowners but the rest of its analysis will.

June is over and where did that month go? The mid-point of 2022 is pivotal in the property calendar – with six months of trading behind us. All eyes are on the market’s momentum and whether demand is being maintained. 

There has been talk about a lack of properties for sale for some time now but a new report released at the end of May has put a figure on the squeeze. Propertymark claims that in April 2022, there were 52% fewer properties available, compared to the same month in the previous nine years. 

UK house prices continued to rise in April 2022 but the pace of appreciation has slowed, reports the Nationwide. In the last month, prices increased by 0.3% and although this is the ninth successive month of growth, it is the smallest monthly rise since September 2021.

As we close the first quarter of 2022, figures have started to arrive that show us whether momentum has been maintained in the first three months of this year. More importantly for those looking to buy, sell and rent imminently, we examine what has happened to house prices and rental values in the last four weeks.