Households confident about price rises, research shows

Knight Frank has reported that households in all UK regions perceive that the value of their home increased in March, with Londoners perceiving the best rate of price growth over the duration of the month. This was closely followed by those in the South East, the two areas that generally experience the biggest and fastest price rises.

Households across the country predict house prices will increase again over the next year, with the most robust growth expected by homes in the South East.

When it comes to future price growth, Knight Frank’s research found that mortgage borrowers were most confident, followed by those who own their home outright.

“The fundamentals for the UK housing market remain steady, especially around mortgage costs which remain at record lows,” Gráinne Gilmore, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, commented. “The imbalance between demand and supply of housing is also underpinning house prices. The delivery of new homes remains some 30-40% below the levels needed to start to address the annual shortfall of housing in the UK.”

Gilmore went on: “There have already been several large targeted government policies to try and boost development and ease the path of first-time buyers – and it is notable the future sentiment reading for 25-34 year olds is the highest it has been for 15 months.”

Gilmore expects the sound fundamentals of the market to combine to support overall prices in the coming year, but also believes the market will continue to be ‘multi-speed’ across regions and price bands.