UK house prices rose 5.2% during the three months to May 2019, according to data posted by Halifax.
This increase occurred at the fastest annual rate since the start of 2017.
House prices in the three months to May were 5.2% higher than in the same three months a year prior. The nation’s largest mortgage lender added, however, that May’s annual change does come against a backdrop of particularly low growth rate during the same period in 2018, which has therefore impacted year-on-year comparisons.
In the latest quarter, house prices were 2.5% higher than in the preceding three months. Equally, on a monthly basis, house prices grew by 0.5%.
“We saw a slight increase in house prices between April and May, but the overall message is one of stability. Despite the ongoing political and economic uncertainty, underlying conditions in the broader economy continue to underpin the housing market, particularly the twin factors of high employment and low interest rates,” Russell Galley, Managing Director at Halifax, commented on the data.
Indeed, Halfiax’s figures for January reveled that UK house prices were down 2.9%, and it was thought that buyers may have been deterred by the prevailing Brexit-related uncertainty.
2019 also began with data from the Office for National Statistics revealing that house prices in London specifically dropped 1.2% month-on-month in November.
“This is supported by industry-wide figures which suggest no real change in the number of homes being sold month to month, while Bank of England data show the number of mortgages being approved rose by almost 6% in April, reversing the softness seen in the previous month,” the Managing Director continued.
“Looking ahead, we expect the current trend of stability based on high employment and low interest rates to persist over the coming months, though clearly any downturn in the wider economy would be keenly felt in the housing market.”
The data from Halifax also shows that the average price for a home during the period amounted to £237,837.
