A Keep Calm And Carry On Property Market

There’s always a touch of jazz hands trepidation reviewing the latest official house price data, but the speed and scale of the downturn is impossible to ignore. In the space of just 12 months, the annual pace of price rises has plunged from 13.8% to just 0.6%.

It’s now only a matter of time before the index slips into negative territory. On the property front line, homes are selling for tens of thousands below the asking price, as proceedable buyers find themselves holding all the cards.

Even the most optimistic sellers have to accept that for now, this is unequivocally a buyer’s market, albeit one in which the rising cost of borrowing has prompted many credit-reliant buyers to pare back their budgets or pause their moving plans.

There are nevertheless two 'positives' to celebrate as prices continue to slide. The first is that even as each passing month sees thousands of existing homeowners endure a painful jump in their mortgage costs, there’s no sign of the wave of distressed sales seen a decade and half ago.

The second is that while some property types – typically new-builds in areas with lots of supply – are seeing prices plunge, average price falls remain relatively modest. This is still a correction, not a collapse.

We haven’t as yet, reached the tipping point where prices have fallen far enough to cancel out the impact of more expensive mortgages and strict affordability criteria.

For now, those who need and want to move are still doing so, albeit with a healthy dose of caution and while factoring price risk and higher borrowing costs into what they’re prepared to pay for a property.

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