March, 2017
Recent analysis of past property market trends has forecasted a slowdown in UK price rises, but an overall rise in 2017.
This research was carried out by economists of the Housing Market Observatory at Lancaster University Management School and looked into property market performance since 2015. The objective of this research was to improve our understanding of the UK national and regional housing markets.
The study used quite a wide variety of factors at both regional and national level to reach its conclusion. This included factors such as the unemployment rate, price to income ratio, the number of housing starts and other variables to help best predict future trends.
The results of this research predicted a growth of 3.5% across the year and while this is a slight fall from the 4.4% rise in 2016, it is still an indication of a solid economic outlook for the UK property market.
This predicted increase in house prices does of course vary by region, however, it is expected that all regions will see growth this year.
As expected, the capital of England is forecasted to see a slightly higher rise than the national average. London is forecasted to see a slowdown in housing inflation up until Q2 of 2017, but price rises are expected to gather pace towards the end of the year to reach an overall increase of 3.9% for 2017.
East Anglia is the clear standout form this report, as the current growth leader by region and it is predicted to stay that way with the region likely to see a 5.7% jump in house prices this year.
There were suggestions from economists last year that the UK property market may see a price crash in 2017, however, the recent analysis from Lancaster University states that low mortgage rates and sound domestic economic conditions should prevent a sharp fall in prices, and growth in house values should gather momentum towards the tail end of 2017.
