House price slowdown on the horizon, claims leading property association

A leading property association argues it won’t be long before we start to see house price growth slowing.

According to the National Association of Property Buyers, house prices will soon begin to ‘flatline’ following years of double digit rises.

Despite the pandemic, Brexit and the cost-of-living crisis, property prices have continued to soar over the last two years in most regions of the UK. This has often flown in the face of forecasts from economists who have been convinced a housing market crash is on the horizon.

But now the NAPB has claimed that, after months of seeming ‘immune’ to falling rates, house prices will soon begin to decline.  

The association’s spokesman, Jonathan Rolande, said: “It won’t be long before we see house price growth slowing to perhaps 5% in most areas. This is still high, but compared to retail inflation, it is less than half. As the price of everything else rises, property will therefore gradually begin to look like better value than it does right now.”

Rolande, who is also the founder of quick-buy platform House Buy Fast, added of the way the market has performed in recent months: “The property market has become its own being, seemingly immune to market forces, able to grow and grow when industry experts and insiders said it just wasn’t sustainable. But grow it did at double the amount even optimistic reports anticipated.”

But Rolande believes the cost of living, and the negative impact this is having on prices, means the predicted drop in house values might not necessarily be good news.

“We’ve become used to seeing eye-watering double digit inflation in the property market as prices rebounded post-lockdown,” he said. “But that has created its own set of problems with many – especially younger buyers – giving up all hope of ever buying a home. That was bad enough. But in many ways what we’re now seeing is even worse.”

He said inflation is beginning to bite in all aspects of life.

“When property prices increase, it's frustrating, but at least people can focus on other aspects of their life and hope to make the move at some time in the future,” he said.

“The same can’t be said for food and heating. You can’t put eating ‘on hold’. The drastic reduction in people’s available money will inevitably affect the property market too and let's face it, a slowdown in the increases is long overdue.”

He explained that homeowners, like everybody else, have witnessed their bills increasing, alongside the extra burden of a large interest rate rise last week. The Bank of England hiked rates up by 0.5% to try and combat inflation, but Rolande said this would add over 2,000 this year to the average loan.

He claimed the Bank of England is ‘actively trying to take money out of people’s pockets to curb inflation and homeowners are feeling the pinch’.