The Land Registry has this week released the House Pricing Index for the month of June. This index has revealed information on the performance of house prices during the month of the referendum and Brexit result, along with sales volumes from the month of April as the registration of sales takes place approximately two to eight weeks after completion so these are the most up to date figures available.
This month’s statistics shows an increase in the average price of a property in the UK to £213,927. This brings the average house price increase over the year leading up to June to 8.7%, up from 8.1% for the year leading up to May. The referendum seems to have done little to affect the growth of the average UK house price with Wales, Northern Ireland and North West regions seeing increases to their monthly price change. Although the North East and West Midlands regions were the only one to have a negative change to their house prices, the majority of regions in England saw a small decrease in their monthly price changes over the previous month, signalling a cool down in the market but not as much as expected with referendum uncertainty.
The sales volume for April, which is measured against the sales figures for the same month of the previous year, show a dramatic fall with every country showing negative results. England had the biggest difference with -33.4% and Scotland the lowest at -16%. Compared with the sales volumes of March this year there is a huge difference. This contrast can be accredited to the Stamp Duty Land Tax increase on additional homes brought in by the government. The deadline of completion for these was 1st April 2016 so March saw a flood of landlords snapping up buy to let properties in a bid to complete before this date and avoid paying the additional rate.
As the uncertainty leading up to the referendum did not have as much of an impact on house prices as previously thought, will this have any effect on the sale volume for the months due to be reported? It will be difficult to predict what future months have in store as other factors, such as the lowering of the Bank of England base rate, may also affect the statistics.
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