A look into the latest price indices

September 18, 2023 4:37 pm

As the property market continues to shift, we at Stephanie Macnab Estate Agents keep a careful eye on the leading price indices to ensure our advice to clients and buyers reflects the current climate.

Kate Faulkner of The Negotiator Magazine provides a synopsis of the latest property price and market indices headlines in her August 2023 property price report.

Rightmove
Demand resilient, but Bank of England rate rises biting
“The price of property coming to market falls by an average of 0.2% (-£905) this month, marginally below the 0% norm for this time of year, as new sellers temper their price expectations in response to rising mortgage costs and increasing buyer affordability constraints.”

Home.co.uk
Prices flatline as stock levels surge
“Asking prices across England and Wales remain unchanged since last month, as is to be expected based on seasonality, but mortgage woes will also have contributed to more conservative pricing. Meanwhile, year-on-year growth slid further into the negative (-1.5%).”

RICS
Rising interest rate expectations place renewed downward pressure on housing market activity
“The ongoing dip in national house prices appears to gain momentum slightly during June.”

Nationwide
Annual house price growth edged further into negative territory in July
“Annual house price growth edged down to -3.8% in July. This was the weakest outturn since July 2009, although it is only modestly lower than the -3.5% recorded last month.”

Halifax
Slight monthly fall in property prices, but housing market displays resilience
“Average house price fell by -0.3% in July, a fourth consecutive monthly decline. Property prices dropped by -2.4% annually, easing from -2.6% in June.”

e.surv
Annual house price growth at lowest rate since March 2012
“The annual growth rate in England and Wales in July 2023, for both mortgage and cash-based house purchases, was an arithmetic average of 0.3%. This is -0.9% below the rate of 1.2% for June 2023, and represents the eleventh month in succession in which the annual rate of house price growth has slowed from the +12.8% in August 2022.”

Zoopla
House price inflation slows to +0.6%
“Weaker demand and rising supply have driven a rapid slowdown in house price growth. UK house price inflation is currently running at +0.6% (June 2023), down from +9.6% in June 2022.”

Regional property prices tracking

It’s taken a while, but the indices are all starting to show similar figures – either insignificant rises or falls. Not surprisingly, Nationwide is reporting the most falls – ranging from -1.1% in East Midlands to a 4.7% fall in the East, with the North West showing 4.1% in quarter 2 in 2023.

The reason for this is that anyone with a mortgage will be on a tighter budget than those without, so mortgaged property prices will fall the most first.

The Rightmove index shows some rises, the most being 2.1% in Yorkshire and Humber and falls of 0.6% in London and the East. The reason this is useful data is it monitors how sellers (and their agents feel) about the up-and-coming market.

Currently, their index shows some price falls, but they are still minimal and that’s likely to be due to the still tight stock levels, although we know the supply/demand balance will change over the coming months in favour of buyers.

Stephanie commented, “Formby remains somewhat resilient due to the number of cash transactions, but we are not immune to the challenging market conditions and asking prices must reflect the change in buyer temperament.