Post-Brexit, UK home prices have risen, with London predictably still England’s most expensive city in which to buy homes.
House prices in the UK rose by an average of 7.7 percent year-on-year in September, making the average cost of a home almost £218,000 (S$383,946) — £16,000 (S$28,184) higher — according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
England posted the biggest increase in home prices at 8.3 percent, while Scotland recorded a modest rise of 3.4 percent. The average cost of a home rose by 12.1 percent in East England, followed by London, where home prices climbed 10.9 percent.
London remained the priciest area in England to buy a home, with an average house costing £448,000 (S$788,907). In fact, average home prices in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea stood at £1.4 million (S$2.5 million) in September.
Comparatively, average home prices in Wales and Northern Ireland stood at £146,000 (S$257,114) and £124,000 (S$218,371), respectively. The UK House Price Index revealed that Blaenau Gwent in South Wales is the cheapest area to purchase a home, at around £76,000 (S$133,854).
In terms of supply and demand, the ONS cited the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ recent findings, which suggested that new listings dropped 6.6 percent in August.
“We now have three months of post-Brexit official housing figures, which show price growth remaining robust, but fewer properties changing hands,” said PricewaterhouseCoopers Senior Economist Richard Snook.
“High prices are causing some buyers to stay out of the market altogether. The ONS data show residential transactions in September were just 93,000, 11.3 percent lower than the previous year,” he said. “This implies that underlying demand may be weakening as property becomes less and less affordable.”
The present ONS data replaces the separate house price indices previously published by the Land Registry and the ONS.
Last week, the ONS unveiled plans to roll out a new measure of inflation in March 2017 to include the cost of owning a house. Dubbed CPIH, the measure adds changes to the cost of owning a house to other price changes monitored in the Consumer Price Index.
Cheryl Marie Tay, Senior Journalist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories, email cheryl@propertyguru.com.sg
