foreign buyers snap up homes

Winners and losers for 2014. House price increases

According to the latest date released by the Halifax 2014 saw some of the biggest house price increases since records began. Parts of London saw increases of 25% even with the lull in the market since the summer. The early part of the year saw the market get off to an amazing start with up to ten buyers making offers on every home that came onto the market. This produced some of the biggest increases in London ever seen and concerns were immediately raised by property experts who were concerned that the housing market was going to implode.

Some of the biggest winners were in London where the Royal Borough of Greenwich saw prices increase by 25% raising the average price from £263,000 to £328,000. Whilst the numbers of homes sold was well below the heights of 2007 estate agents were simply inundated with buyers and prices were going up on a daily basis. Thankfully the market has cooled down a little but house prices still look set to increase further in 2015. Ealing in West London also saw dramatic house price inflation of 24% bringing the price of an average home to £365,000.

All of this happened in the early to mid part of the year as buyers were out on force and taking advantage of the various incentive schemes being offered by the government. The market was so busy that the Bank of England was forced to intervene by tightening up the mortgage lending rules and making it harder for buyers to borrow money. This had the desired effect of dampening down demand and putting the brake on the housing market, something that many property experts had been calling on the Bank of England to do for some time.

Most of the frenetic activity took place in the south east of England but there was some good news for part of the north on England where price increases were more modest. Sheffield has seen house price inflation of 13% which is due to the health of the local jobs market. Sheffield has seen a major boost in the jobs market and more job creation is going to continue into 2015. This has increased the demand for new homes and the average price is likely to be pushed up further in 2015