House Prices and Brexit Nervousness – Your round-up of the experts
Whichever way you voted 2016, it’s hard to deny that Brexit is somewhat of an elephant in the room for homeowners. In fact, at this stage the only person who knows which way things will go is whatever omnipotent deity you happen to subscribe to.
One might think it strange then, that amongst all of this uncertainty, house prices have continued to rise. And yet they have, both in 2017 and 2018.
House prices themselves are affected by a multitude of different variables, supply-and-demand being one of the more important, but they also broadly correlate with sentiment in the wider economy. The more consumer confidence there is the greater the average house price rise, at least according to trends over the previous few decades.
But what will happen to house prices in 2019 and beyond? We are now firmly in the year where any impact from Brexit should make itself known, so – short of an omnipotent deity to ask – we’ve instead scoured the internet to find out what industry experts think will happen. The results are:
- Rightmove – No change
- Henry Pryor (Property Commentator) – 5% fall
- Russell Galley (Halifax) – 2% to 4% rise
- Andrew Burrell (Capital Economics) – 1% rise
- Strutt & Parker (Estate Agent) – 2.5% rise
A confusing and mixed picture all around because, quite bluntly, no-one really knows what Brexit will bring. There are simply too many variables at play – too many unknowns – for anything other than ‘finger-in-the-air’ predictions.
On Yopa’s Brexit House Price Tracker, their ‘average-of-industry-expert-averages’ currently predicts a 0.8% rise in house prices during 2019, although as can be seen from their graphs, the year has already got off to a rather poor start.
At this stage, you would be forgiven for throwing your hands in the air, exasperated by all of the unknowns and what-ifs. To that end, the only advice we can give is that if you are thinking of buying and/or selling a house, now is as good a time as any, particularly if you are looking at downsizing. After all, house prices are near all-time highs, the market is relatively stable, and no-one ever truly knows what tomorrow will bring.
