Are House Prices Edging Up? (Market Update June 24)

Our Managing Director, Mark, delivers his thoughts on what was a very busy month of May and looks ahead into June and, of course, the likely response of the market to the pending election.

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Manning Stainton

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May was I'm pleased to say a very busy month across the market and continued what has been a very busy start to 2024 as the recovery continues.

What do the numbers tell us?

We are very lucky to have access to whole of market date from TwentyEA and this clearly shows the change in activity experienced over the last 12 months.

In May there were 1.670 new listings brought to market across the region that Manning Stainton cover which is of course Leeds, Wakefield and Wetherby which is a 21% increase on May last year. And Sales volume improved by 14% across the market with the average price of property sold up by 5.3%.

Don’t get too excited by that though because I believe that is a general reflection of more property selling at the mid to higher end of the market rather than significant changes in pricing.

In saying that there are definite signs that prices might be edging up a little…

Rightmove reads the market at 0.8% increase in the month.
Nationwide at 0.4% increase
Halifax 0.1% up
And the Land Registry at 0.7%

And this is the first time that all four of the major indexes have recorded positive movement in the month which in my view tells a general trend around the improved environment.

So what's the outlook?

Well first of all we have an election coming and from the housing market perspective Rishi definitely did us a favour calling a snap election. The short notice allows for limited disruption and uncertainty and that appears to be the case in the numbers we have just looked at and from what we are seeing across our network.

Beyond this we need two things to happen.

A clean result in the election. Forget the politics what this country needs is clear result and stable leadership for the next parliamentary term. 5 PM’s in 7 years has taken its toll on the UK and certainly not helped the housing market.
We need interest rates to come down and do so quickly. There is now expectation this will happen and so we need to see the BOE make that change ideally starting with their next review on the 20^th June.

If both of these things do as we hope then we will see continued growth and stability in the market for at least the next 12 months and perhaps beyond barring any significant outside events.