National Property Market – December

Happy New Year to you all! After an economic year of ups and downs with a measure of troublesome politics thrown into the melting pot, we have all emerged unscathed from the 2017 property market. Looking back, it had many highs, one or two slows and a few lows but mainly we are seeing property prices increase in the sales and rentals markets year on year.

The house price index on Rightmove shows the average national asking price of property is £302,865 which is down -2.6% from last month and up 1.2% on last year. The East of England average asking price saw a decrease of -1.8% to £339,718 down by 3.1% on last year. Traditionally December does see seasonal price falls.

First time buyer house prices saw a slight downturn of -1.7% to £190,310 whilst the second steppers saw a 0.2% increase this month making the average asking price £263,634 – that is down -1.4% annually. Rightmove is forecasting average growth of 3% for typical first-time-buyer and 2% for second-stepper properties in 2018.

Average national asking prices in November according to the Nationwide House Price Index were £209,988, that is up 01.% from last month and up 2.5% on last year. Nationwide report that “The decision in the Budget to abolish stamp duty (SDLT) for first time buyers purchasing a property up to £300,000 (with relief for those purchasing a property up to £500,000) is likely to have only a modest impact on overall demand. In many regions, first time buyers already paid little or no stamp duty as the price of the typical first time buyer property was below the previous threshold of £125,000”. That is certainly the case in our region.

The New Year heralds a time for change and if your change this year is to sell your property or indeed to buy your first property, give us a call. We have sold 50% of our advertised properties in 28 days in 2017. 75% were sold in 50 days. Visit Tortoiseproperty.co.uk to see how we do this and get a free online valuation in just a few seconds.