The stamp duty tax holiday is over, furlough finished at the end of September, unemployment is due to rise, and inflation is rife … is this the end of the post lockdown property boom?
Surely, we are heading for house price correction?
Forecasting what will happen in our local property market this Autumn may not be as simple as it first appears.
It’s true the market is starting to settle down after an all-time number of property deals were completed in June.
More people will have moved home in 2021 than in any year since 2007, with an estimated 1.5 million home buyers nationally having bought a property.
Roll the clock back to last Christmas, and the Government’s Office for Budget Responsibility, projected that national house prices would drop between 6% and 8%.
Let us not forget there were so many ambiguities at the start of 2021. We were about to start a 5-month lockdown, hospitals were bursting at the seams with patients, the vaccines hadn’t started, 4 in 10 employers had furloughed their staff and we had just had Brexit … things didn’t look good.
Yet, nothing could be further from the truth 10 months later – the property sales market has been on fire. But after a heated summer, things certainly can’t carry on as they have been since the end of lockdown.
As we enter the last 3 months of the year, there are not so many uncertainties as there were at the start of 2021. On the good news front, 49 million Brits have had at least one jab (45m two jabs) and the UK will be the world’s fastest growing advanced economy this year according to the IMF.
Conversely, the furlough scheme ended at the end of September and with energy prices going through the roof, a real shortage of homes for and rising inflation on the back of a shortage of raw materials and trained staff, forecasting this and what will happen to house prices might not be as easy as it seems.
Post stamp duty holiday, it is now recognised that the majority of the demand for people moving home is focused by a profound frustration with the homes we live in, revealed during the first lockdown in 2020.
Buyers want space … in fact, three types of space … and they will pay handsomely for them!
- Office space (be that bedroom or study)
- Outside space (gardens or proximity to green areas)
- Broadband with ‘outa-space’ download speeds
And whilst there is a shortage of properties coming on to the market, demand and supply economics mean house prices should remain relatively stable going into 2022 (in our opinion).
We must not forget there are many factors that could affect the market in a positive and negative way, yet buying property is always a long-term investment so, if you need any advice or opinion on what you should do, please feel free to give us a call on 01642 506 800. It is our job to help people mov
