Are House Prices Falling In The UK?

Housing prices are always a subject of concern for many of the pundits you’ll see in the media. That’s likely because housing prices actually have an influence on other kinds of investments. The higher the prices, the less likely people and companies are to invest in innovation, new technologies, and other new businesses. As housing prices go down, however, people begin to make those investments once more. Are housing prices currently going up or down in the UK?

The Early Part of 2023

As of the early part of 2023, house prices are on a downward trend. In fact, at the end of 2022, house prices started to tumble, and they haven’t really recovered since that point. Sellers are suddenly being asked to be far more realistic with their home price numbers than they were just a year ago, and while the market as a whole has regained most of its standard prices, housing activity isn’t really showing any signs of recovery. The chances are good that most people still remain a bit underconfident on big investments. Couple that with the number of financial pressures that are hitting most households, and you have a perfect recipe for dipping housing prices.

What Do Average House Prices Look Like Right Now?

On the whole, average prices are running between £250,000 and £350,000 across the country. Naturally the price you’ll pay depends extensively on where you are located. That can vary both by the city or region you’re in and by neighbourhood. Some spaces are simply more expensive than others.

Has the Time to Buy Changed Any?

One reason many people shy away from the housing market in general is because it can take so long to purchase a home. Even after you find a house for you, it can take forever to make that purchase. One of the biggest reasons for that is the fact that so many house sales these days are attached to chains. Once one house sale has fallen through, others begin to collapse too. It takes just one person pulling out a house sale to make almost everyone else’s sale in the chain collapse.

The time to buy hasn’t changed a lot, even with falling home prices. While you’re less likely to encounter new mortgages blocked or other similar financing problems, you may still see the occasional seller pulling out of a house sale because things aren’t going quite as they expected when it comes to pricing.

Fewer home sales does spell one great thing for buyers and sellers alike, though. In most cases, conveyancing solicitors tend to be less busy than they have been in the past, and that means that you’re likely to have a much faster process in the solicitor’s office than you would have just a year ago. Part of what was holding up the timeline on home sales just a few years ago was the fact that solicitors and mortgage lenders were so busy, they had trouble keeping up with all of the sales that were happening, and that meant that mortgage offers would expire before completion, sellers would back out, and entire chains would collapse based on timing alone.

Will House Prices Continue to Fall?

What’s going to happen to house prices in the near future is almost anyone’s guess at this point. Most lending experts have predicted that house prices will begin to stabilise, and that may mean that the market as a whole will go back to normal in the near future. It’s tough to tell when that will happen, though, as at the moment, people are still a bit nervous about making the biggest investment of their lives given that interest rates remain as high as they are. The Bank of England expects that interest rates will peak this year and begin falling after that, so it may slowly become easier to find a mortgage and to find the right house for you as the market begins to shift and change once more.

Home prices and interest rates have shifted and changed throughout time, and that process isn’t going anywhere soon. In this case, it’s a benefit to buyers. Soon, though, those home prices could be on the rise once more, and that will be a bigger benefit to sellers.