The cooling housing market: what happens next for UK property?

The end of the latest boom is in sight. What kind of landing can we expect?

Property for sale signs
(Image credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

As we mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee, it’s fascinating to take a look at the economics of her whole 70-year reign, said David Smith in The Sunday Times. One story has been about inflation: her rule has been “bookended” by periods of rapid price rises in the early 1950s and early 2020s. But the biggest theme is “years of roaring house prices”. Back in 1952, when Nationwide helpfully began its house price index, the average UK home cost £1,891. The index’s latest average is £260,771 – “139 times the 1952 level”. This remarkable rise, fuelled by the greater availability of mortgages and inadequate housing supply, has had a huge social impact. “In the 1950s and 1960s, people did not need mega City salaries to live in style. Teachers, civil servants and other professionals could do so. Then housing pulled away.”

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