House prices and rents continuing to accelerate

Featured in Property Industry Eye 

An increase in demand, coupled with the growing property stock shortage, is placing upward pressure on property prices and rental values across most parts of the country. The slow start to the year for Britain’s housing market extended into February, before the chancellor Rishi Sunak announced an extension of the stamp duty holiday and the introduction of the new 95% mortgage guarantee - measures that are expected to revive the recent property boom.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said new buyer enquiries remained negative, but by less than in January, and new sellers were deterred by ongoing the pandemic.

RICS’ monthly gauge of residential property prices increased to +52%, slightly higher than +49% in January and still signalling widespread growth in property prices and sales over the next few months.

Other measures of Britain’s housing market have also suggested that activity in the property market was unsurprisingly starting to slow ahead of the planned expiry of the stamp duty at the end of March - before the deadline was extended by Sunak.

Three-quarters of responses to the RICS survey arrived before Sunak’s announcement on 3 March.

“[The measures] should help support the housing market over the coming months with concerns around a cliff-edge end to the stamp duty break eased,” said Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist.

“However, a very clear message emanating from the latest survey is that more needs to be done to address the shortfall in supply with price and rent expectations very evidently continuing to accelerate.”

Surveyors expected incomes from rental properties to increase over the next 12 months with the exception of London, where chartered surveyors expected flat rents.

Tahir Farooqui, CEO of private rental platform Canopy, said “Renters need more support to get out of the cycle of renting and get a foot on the housing ladder.

“Wider adoption of affordable financial products that help people build a good credit score will lead to more people passing affordability checks and securing a mortgage. Open Banking-based rent tracking is already supporting Generation Rent who have been further pushed away from homeownership by the pandemic.”