Filtered by Subscriptions: UK Housing Use setting UK Housing
Our new, higher interest rate forecast suggests that mortgage rates will climb to an eight-year high in 2023, making house prices look expensive by historical standards. But the overvaluation won’t be as extreme as it was on the eve of the financial …
15th February 2022
We already expected that rental growth would surge to a decade-high this year. But the strength of leading indicators and the low level of rents relative to income by historical standards suggest rental growth will exceed even that forecast and remain …
11th February 2022
A breakdown of house price growth over the past two years confirms that remote working has altered the nation’s housing needs. But what households can afford, rather than what they desire, will be a more important driver of house prices over the next few …
19th January 2022
Recent data have reinforced concerns about inflation risks in the UK. We remain of the view that property investments provide only limited long-term protection against higher prices, but of the individual asset types, we think industrial and residential …
14th January 2022
Strong demand will ensure that house prices maintain their momentum in the first half of the year. But rising mortgage rates will weigh on demand further out, causing prices to cool. The three key forces that have driven house prices higher over the past …
6th January 2022
While the hike in Bank Rate from 0.10% to 0.25% came a little earlier than we expected, it does not change our view that the overall rise in interest rates over the next couple of years will be modest. However, the continued strength of both inflation and …
16th December 2021
While mortgage lending slowed in Q3 as the stamp duty holiday was tapered, an easing of deposit requirements supported first-time buyer demand. Meanwhile, the Financial Policy Committee’s plan to withdraw its affordability stress test will allow banks to …
14th December 2021
Consumers will feel a squeeze on their finances next year as inflation and taxes rise. That will take some wind out of the housing market’s sails, but it will not cause a correction. A spike in inflation and a hike in National Insurance contributions in …
13th December 2021
The most comprehensive statistics on housing supply confirmed that the pause in construction in Q2 2020 caused completions of new homes to drop back. Housebuilding activity has since recovered but materials shortages, the end of the Help to Buy Equity …
29th November 2021
Estate agents undoubtedly have a very limited number of homes on the books. But the idea that the lack of supply is due to few homes being put up for sale is a misconception. High numbers of transactions inevitably mean that listings are higher than …
24th November 2021
Anticipation of higher interest rates has pushed up fixed mortgage rates. And with scope for banks to absorb higher costs in their margins now exhausted, future changes in interest rate expectations will be fully passed through to mortgage rates. But as …
12th November 2021
The indication from the Bank of England that Bank Rate of 1.25% would be too high for the economy suggests that the forthcoming rise in interest rates won’t be anywhere near large enough to topple the housing market. Rather, we expect house prices to rise …
5th November 2021
Shortages of construction materials are unlikely to ease for at least another 6-12 months, restraining activity in the renovation sector and among smaller housebuilders . That is likely to cap housing starts for the next year or so at about 40,000 per …
21st October 2021
We doubt that a larger rise in Bank Rate over the next two years than we previously expected will put much upward pressure on mortgage rates. Low interest rates and increased spending on housing costs will continue to provide a supportive environment for …
1st October 2021
It is an under-statement to say that house prices have weathered the pandemic well; housing markets are positively booming. Yet the drivers of this rise in prices are rather different to those of the pre-2007 housing boom, meaning that we do not seem to …
28th September 2021
A jump in deposit sizes has been a key driver of the rise in house prices over the past 18 months. While saving is now dropping back, households have built up a large stock of cash assets which will prevent a rapid reversal in deposit size. While not …
27th September 2021
The Evergrande crisis has made waves in financial markets this week. But, while the developed property markets we cover may see some short-term upheaval, we think the impacts outside of China are unlikely to be severe or lasting. For property investors, …
23rd September 2021
The end of the stamp duty holiday may do little to dampen demand and homes for sale are in short supply. The upshot is that house price growth will remain strong into next year, so we have revised up our forecast for house price growth in 2022 from 3% to …
16th September 2021
While the furlough scheme was critical in preventing the COVID-19 recession from dragging down house prices, we don’t think that the withdrawal of the scheme poses much of a risk. Meanwhile, the latest data show the end of the repossessions ban and …
2nd September 2021
New plans have extended Permitted Development Rights (PDRs) on commercial property, allowing swifter conversion to residential use. These have been cautiously welcomed, but, in our view, they do not radically shift the outlook for either residential or …
18th August 2021
While the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) became more hawkish at its August meeting, an increase in interest rates on the scale it expects would not undermine house prices. But more stubborn inflation than anticipated and a hike in Bank Rate to 1.5% by …
16th August 2021
It is inevitable that transactions will drop sharply after setting a record high in June. But the stamp duty holiday is just one of several factors behind the housing market boom, so house prices should prove resilient to the end of the tax break. The …
21st July 2021
While London rents are set to reverse some of the fall of the past year, we doubt the premium of rents in the capital over the national average will return to its pre-virus level. But outside London rental growth is set to accelerate sharply. London …
13th July 2021
Inflation in the cost of construction materials has soared as resurgent new home development led to strong demand at the same time as supply was still recovering from disruption due to the pandemic. It is likely to peak soon as supply disruptions ease, …
24th June 2021
The early evidence suggests that the end of the evictions moratorium will not result in a huge wave of evictions. And while the end of the furlough scheme presents a risk, we suspect that the easing of restrictions will have allowed the economy to recover …
11th June 2021
House-price-to-earnings ratios are close to record highs even in regions where there isn’t a shortage of supply. But the varying cost of rent across the country suggests that limited supply is an important reason why house prices are even higher in the …
26th May 2021
All four previous recessions in the UK led to a sharp slowdown or an outright fall in house prices. (See Chart 1.) But 2020 was very different, with house price growth accelerating to a six-year high despite the largest collapse in output for 100 years. …
28th April 2021
Long-term interest rates have risen sharply since the end of 2020 and may rise further, but that shouldn’t be a drag on the housing market. In fact, we think that mortgage rates will fall a little further in the medium term, helping to ensure that the …
13th April 2021
While investment in build-to-rent developments has been notably resilient over the past year, we continue to think that the growth of the sector will be slow for two reasons. First, high house prices relative to rents means that build-to-rent investors …
7th April 2021
Recent movements on house prices show only limited evidence that COVID-19 has substantially changed where people want to live. While central London has underperformed, central Manchester and Birmingham appear unaffected. That said, we wouldn’t rule out …
23rd March 2021
A quick economic recovery, sustained fiscal support, and the housing-specific measures in the Budget mean it is likely that policymakers will successfully mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic on the housing market. As a result, we now think that …
8th March 2021
The prolonged reduction in Stamp Duty, a new mortgage guarantee scheme, and an extension to the furlough scheme should sustain high transactions volumes and prices throughout most of this year. There will still be challenges in Q4, when we expect the end …
3rd March 2021
A three-month extension to the stamp duty holiday should prevent sales falling in Q2 even if it does not incentivise much new activity given ongoing delays in conveyancing. And the timeliest data suggests that buyer demand may prove resilient when the tax …
24th February 2021
Mortgage arrears have remained very low, casting doubt on our view that we will see a substantial rise in forced selling later this year. But new evidence from the Resolution Foundation shows that policy support remains crucial to households keeping up …
23rd February 2021
The availability of high loan-to-value mortgages has dropped sharply, and the cost of those that are still available has rocketed. So it’s remarkable that the share of mortgage advances going to first-time buyers hasn’t dropped. We put it down to the …
10th February 2021
Our analysis suggests that the apparent sudden drop in the population of the UK last year has led to a huge rise in vacancy rates in the London and Midlands rental markets. House prices in those regions are also most at risk, both from the direct …
8th February 2021
In our Future of Property research, we identified important post-pandemic shifts in most real estate sectors. How these trends interact will be key to the outlook for the urban locations where most real estate is clustered. We think it is premature to …
4th February 2021
Completions of new homes have made a full recovery from their collapse in Q2 2020, but builders appear more hesitant to start new projects. Given we expect the housing market to endure a rough patch later this year, that is unlikely to change anytime …
18th January 2021
The latest lockdown will keep rental demand in London very weak and prolong the drop in rents there. There is no doubt that they will recover in the summer if vaccines are successful and the virus restrictions are eased, but we think that some of the …
13th January 2021
Government reform of leasehold will reduce payments from leaseholders to freehold landlords a lot in some instances. In this Update, we provide two examples of how the changes will affect “enfranchisement premia” – the cost of buying the freehold or …
11th January 2021
The government’s plan to end the furlough scheme and the stamp duty holiday in the spring sets the housing market up for a hangover from the surge in prices in 2020. As a result, we are more downbeat on the prospects for house prices in 2021 than most …
5th January 2021
The pandemic – and the associated increase in working from home – may cause a fundamental shift in the way that cities function in future. But this shift will not necessarily trigger a more fundamental economic decline in the world’s largest urban …
Given a tightening in credit conditions, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) is probably right to be unconcerned by the recent surge in mortgage lending. In fact, the Committee is preparing to loosen its mortgage lending guardrails, which may allow …
14th December 2020
News about a vaccine has boosted financial markets and we have revised up our global economic expectations for the next two years or so. But while we think that this bodes well for the medium term, next year is still likely to be tough for most property …
2nd December 2020
With the benefit of hindsight, the stamp duty holiday was not necessary to get the housing market moving again. And the end of the holiday in March will insert a cliff edge in demand at the exact moment we expect employment and incomes to be suffering …
20th November 2020
A striking development in the past few months is how well housing markets in developed markets have generally been doing. We expect this to peter out next year, although in most cases house price falls will be avoided. In the meantime, the strength of …
19th November 2020
History suggests that large falls in employment can lead to big falls in house prices. The furlough scheme, mortgage holidays, and a moratorium on possessions have insulated the housing market from the effects of this crisis so far. But after that support …
17th November 2020
Cladding issues are a downside risk to our already weak housing transactions forecasts for next year. If there continues to be severe testing delays and no change in policy, transactions could end up significantly weaker than our expectations in 2021. …
9th November 2020
The second lockdown will have a smaller immediate impact than the first as the housing market is allowed to remain open this time. But it will also put the economic recovery into reverse and push the unemployment rate up to 9% next year. With policy …
4th November 2020
The big downward revision to employment in the labour market statistics reveals that renters have seen a larger hit to employment than homeowners. This supports our view that house prices will be resilient next year, while private rents will probably …
14th October 2020