UK Property Market Resilient to Brexit Jitters, Reports ONS
By |Published On: 16th August 2016|

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UK Property Market Resilient to Brexit Jitters, Reports ONS

By |Published On: 16th August 2016|

This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.

The UK property market proved resilient to Brexit jitters in the month of the vote, according to the latest House Price Index from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The average UK house price rose by 8.7% in the year to June 2016, up from 8.5% in the 12 months to May, continuing the strong growth recorded since the end of 2013, found the study.

The report, compiled using Land Registry data, reveals that the average UK house price in June – for which the most recent figures are available – was £214,000, up by £17,000 on June 2015 and £2,100 higher than the previous month.

UK Property Market Resilient to Brexit Jitters, Reports ONS

UK Property Market Resilient to Brexit Jitters, Reports ONS

The main contributor to the increase in UK property prices was England, where values rose by 9.3% in the 12 months to June. The average house price in England is now £229,000, compared to £145,000 in Wales, which saw an annual increase of 4.9%, and £143,000 in Scotland, where prices were up by 4.6% over the year. The average property value in Northern Ireland was just £123,000 in June.

Regionally, London continues to boast the highest average house price in England, at £472,000. Behind are the South East, at £309,000, and the East of England, at £270,000. The lowest average house price in England continues to be found in the North East, at £124,000.

However, the East of England has replaced London as the region with the highest annual house price growth, with values rising by 14.3% in the year to June. Despite this, growth in London remains high, at 12.6%, followed by the South East, at 12.3%. The lowest annual growth was seen in the North East, where prices were up by just 1.5% in the past year.

The most expensive place to live in England as of June was Kensington and Chelsea, where the average home costs a whopping £1.2m. Contrastingly, the cheapest area to buy a property was Burnley, at just £75,000.

The Senior Economist at PwC, Richard Snook, comments on the data: “These figures only capture one week of market activity after the vote to leave the EU on 23rd June, so it is too early to draw any firm conclusions from this set of data.

“Nevertheless, we expect that the vote to leave the EU will have a significant impact on the housing market. In our main scenario, average UK house price growth will decelerate to around 3% this year and around 1% in 2017. Cumulatively, our estimates suggest average UK house prices in 2018 could be 8% lower than if the UK had voted to stay in the EU.”

The founder and CEO of eMoov.co.uk, Russell Quirk, also looks at how the Brexit will affect the UK property market: “The latest data from the blended ONS and Land Registry indices shows no Brexit impact in June to the UK property market.

“Nationally, house prices are £17,000 higher than in June of last year and up more than £2,000 when compared to pre-Brexit. However, the two-month reporting lag of this particular indices means the drop in prices reported by Halifax at the start of the month is unlikely to come to the surface until July’s indices.

“Regionally, the capital is still king of UK house prices, at £472,204 on average, but it’s interesting to see the East of England has overtaken London with the highest rate of annual growth, of 14.3%, 1.7% higher than London.”

Quirk believes: “This could be an early indicator of foreign investment fleeing the capital pre and post-referendum result, although, that said, we’ve seen property demand in prime central London plummet to record lows over the last year. This is evidently becoming clear now in terms of property values, with both Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham in the top five for the poorest performance in terms of annual growth, with values down 6.2% and 3.2% respectively.

“Newham still flies the flag for London as the fourth highest local authority district in terms of annual growth, up 21.4% over the year. So the capital and the UK as a whole are still looking rather robust where the state of the property market is concerned.”

About the Author: Em Morley (she/they)

Em is the Content Marketing Manager for Just Landlords, with over five years of experience writing for insurance and property websites. Together with the knowledge and expertise of the Just Landlords underwriting team, Em aims to provide those in the property industry with helpful resources. When she’s not at her computer researching and writing property and insurance guides, you’ll find her exploring the British countryside, searching for geocaches.

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