They say that a week is a long time in politics. In property we count changes not in weeks but months – although events that affect the market arrive quickly and often out of nowhere, it takes a while for the effects to be felt. The latest ONS figures, released on May 18th reflect the property market in March and that’s already beginning to feel a very long time ago.
At the very beginning of the next month the energy price cap was lifted and we all saw our fuel bills jump massively. New NI rates also kicked in and took even more money from us. Petrol and diesel costs hit an all time high and food prices look set to climb ever higher.
With property price growth at 9.8% for the year to March we are already out of the double digit madness and I expect price growth to tail off consistently for much of the rest of the year. With general inflation also hitting new heights, in real terms anything less than 10% growth in property prices will begin to feel like a drop. Sellers have been in the driving seat for a very long time now. I suspect we may be witnessing a shift, or at least the beginnings of it.
