Buyer demand hits new highs but set to moderate as lockdowns ease across the country. The demand/supply imbalance is increasingly focused on family houses.
Annual UK house price inflation +4.0%
House prices have been rising at an annual rate of 4% or more for five months, although March marks the slowest rate of growth in October 2020. Price growth is down from 4.5% in January. High levels of demand which are not being matched by supply will continue to support pricing, but the annual rate of price growth will continue to ease as these extreme imbalances start to unwind.
Zoopla’s house price index is stock-weighted, rather than transaction-based, so, in effect, it ‘looks through’ the increased sales of more expensive homes which have characterized the market since last summer.
Demand for homes hits new highs
There has been strong buyer demand from the start of 2021, leading to one of the busiest sales markets in years – with the value of homes sold subject to contract in the first 15 months of the year almost double that in 2019 and 2020.
Since March, demand jumped again, to levels like those last seen in the wake of the first lock-down last summer.
