House price exuberance just refuses to die away. The housing market has kicked on again in the opening quarter of 2016, fuelled by continued low borrowing rates and impending changes to buy to let stamp duty. This has heralded a new record high for asking prices according to the latest monthly data from online agency Rightmove which saw average asking prices for a UK property rise through the £300,000 barrier for the first time.
This seals a 50 per cent uplift in asking prices over the past 10 years, despite the ‘hiccup’ of the global financial crisis in 2007-2009. And the surge is not, for once, being driven primarily by London. Of the ten regions, six are now seeing record asking prices with recent notable strength in the West Midlands and North West of late.
But with price rises continuing to outpace wage increases, affordability is becoming increasingly stretched in many parts of the country and that, coupled with the short term effect of tax changes possibly taking the wind out of the buy to let market’s sails, might serve to apply the brake on price growth throughout the rest of this year.
