House prices in England and Wales will fall by four per cent over the final quarter of 2023, thanks to inflation, the cost of living crisis and mortgage rates.

Analysis by the company Reallymoving of over 221,000 property sale prices shows that the average property price will fall from £336,999 in Q3 of this year to £323,594 in Q4.                

Reallymoving captures the price buyers have just agreed to pay for property when they search for conveyancing services on the comparison site. The firm claims this provides unique insight into completed sale prices, or Land Registry data, in three months’ time.

While the impact of inflation pressures has taken some time to filter through, with asking prices remaining stubbornly high this year, it says it’s now clear that buyers who are proceeding with a home move are agreeing to pay less than they did last quarter – and house prices will end the year back where they started in Q1 2023.

Rob Houghton, chief executive of reallymoving, says: “Buyers who agreed property purchases in the third quarter of the year are spending significantly less than they did in Q2, so sellers have clearly been forced to adjust their expectations in order to secure a sale.

“Bearing in mind the financial pressure buyers are under as they adjust to this period of much higher interest rates, and the impact on consumer confidence, it was only a matter of time until the prices they’re willing to pay started to fall.”