House price growth acceleration

I type this as I sit in the living room of my girlfriend’s house, as a professional studies each room of the house to draw up an Energy Performance Certificate, necessary for her to complete a private sale of the property.

Locally at least, the property market appears to be hotting up.

Anecdotally we are hearing about more property sales in Cranleigh, and there are certainly more homes on the market than there were earlier this year when I was personally looking for a new house to buy.

The prices all seem quite buoyant as well.

This ties in with new figures from Halifax which show the average UK house price rising by 5.4% in the twelve months to August 2013.

This is the highest annual rate of house price growth since June 2010, pushing the average value of a home above £170,000 for the first time in five years.

Figures remain well below their market peak of nearly £200,000 back in August 2007, but market confidence is certainly improving, helped along by government initiatives to help the all-important first time buyers.

Low interest rates and an improving economic position are also helping, according to Halifax.

They expect to see continued house price growth for the remainder of the year, although warn that below inflation pay rises could act as a brake on the market.

House prices are important for numerous reasons, not least for making good dinner party conversation.

They are an indicator of economic health and also help to boost consumer confidence; when house prices are rising, we generally feel more confident about spending our hard-earned cash on various goods and services, driving the economy forwards.

The Halifax survey is just one measure of average house prices, so it is always worth considering a range of them to judge the general direction and speed of travel. Housing markets also tend to be very local indeed, with big regional disparities between how well or poorly property prices are performing.

As one indicator of economic health and market confidence, house prices are useful to understand what is going on out there.

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