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House Price Plunge Forecast Set To Prove Unfounded?

Anyone seeking properties for sale in Hackney will have been wise to keep their eyes on two notable and often fluctuating trends; the national picture and the London situation.

Last year saw prices soaring across the UK, but less so in London. However, in recent months prices have fallen month-on-month, dragging down year-on-year increases. 

The latest Land Registry data, for instance, showed that in December the average house price across the UK fell by 0.4 per cent, although there was no change in London. Yet at the same time the capital had seen the lowest price increase of any English region over the course of 2022 at 6.7 per cent.

If that hinted at a different picture to the predictions of a deep drop in prices across the UK amid a lengthy recession in 2023, then the Halifax House Price Index for January indicated that house prices were now static.

However, others still think there will be a substantial drop in prices. Lloyds Bank has published a prediction that house prices will plunge by 6.9 per cent over the course of 2023 amid a small recession.

Group chief executive Charlie Nunn said: “We are predicting what we call a mild recession – nothing like the financial crisis, more like some of the earlier recessions we had in the early parts of the century.”

This is significant because of the relative impact on property prices. As Property Press Online noted recently, the house price crash caused by the 2008-09 financial crisis and the deep recession that came with it was 15.9 per cent, so Lloyds is now predicting a fall less than half of that amount.

All this means that even the worst case scenario is unlikely to be as bad as in the financial crisis and, given the recent data showing house price falls grinding to a halt, it may be that even the Lloyds view turns out to be too downbeat.