Annual house prices up by over 10%

A few weeks ago, Nationwide suggested that the property price surge could hit 10% by June. A strong April saw that milestone reached a month early.

A year ago, talk of a house price boom would have seemed beyond absurd. Yet here we are, after three lockdowns, with Nationwide confirming what every home buyer already knows - property has become a lot more expensive.

The average price of a house increased by 10.9% over the past year to reach £242,832, an increase of £24,000 since the first lockdown told us all to stay home.

The Office of National Statistics - the gold standard - agrees, reporting 10.2% for the year to April.

The ONS numbers confirmed something else we already knew. The North and Midlands showed the greatest gains, ranging between 10.7% and 14%, with Wales and the South West also breaking the 10% barrier. ​Unsurprisingly, Inner London was the poorest performer at 2.1%.

Nationwide's numbers for May - 

	May 2021	April 2021
Monthly change	+1.8%	+2.3%
Annual change	+10.9%	+7.1%
Average Price ​Not seasonally adjusted	£242,832	£238,831

With the stamp duty holiday now tapering off and the end of furlough in sight, can the current surge continue? "Uncertain", according to Robert Gardner, chief economist at Nationwide -

​With the stock of homes on the market constrained, there is scope for annual house price growth to accelerate further in the coming months,

Further ahead, the outlook for the market is far more uncertain. If unemployment rises sharply towards the end of the year as most analysts expect, there is scope for activity to slow, perhaps sharply, though even this could potentially be offset by ongoing shifts in housing preferences, if current trends are maintained.

The figures from Zoopla/Hometrack show that at the city level, Liverpool and Manchester saw the highest price growth for the fifth month in a row. In both cities, demand is running at twice the level of 'normal' times {2017 to 2019) whilst the number of homes available for sale has dropped by over 10%.

	Average Price	April 2021 ​y-o-y	March 2021 ​y-o-y
Liverpool	£132,000	+6.9%	+3.5%
Manchester	£187,100	+6.8%	+4.1%
Nottingham	£170,900	+5.6%	+5%
Leeds	£180,100	+5.5%	+3.6%
Sheffield	£148,300	+5.5%	+2.8%

Buyer demand looks set to ease as the economy opens up but it will remain elevated compared to previous years, which we anticipate will create one of the busiest sales markets in more than a decade in 2021.

Grainne Gilmour
​Head of Research, Zoopla