November saw the fastest house price rise of 2024
First published on KensingtonHouse.com on 1 January 2025. Figures, forecasts and quotations reflect that date and have not been updated. Read it as a record of the market at the time, not as a current view.
November marked the fifth consecutive monthly UK house price rise and the biggest leap so far this year, according to Halifax. The mortgage lender said property values were up 1.3% compared with October, with the average price hitting a new record high of £298,083. On an annual basis, house prices have now seen the fastest growth for the past two years.
“Property values were up 1.3% compared with October, with the average price hitting a new record high of £298,083”
“Latest figures continue to show improving levels of demand for mortgages, as an easing in mortgage rates boost buyer confidence,” said Amanda Bryden, Head of Mortgages at Halifax.
The past five years have seen a pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis and a mortgage market meltdown – prices might have been expected to stagnate or even fall quite dramatically. Yet again and again, the UK housing market has defied the odds and is now up 25% since 2019. This is partly a result of buyers being bolstered by inherited or gifted money, particularly in very wealthy parts of the country like London. Anthony Codling, a property analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said: “The year 1971 was when we reached 50% homeownership in this country… We’re now at the time when that first wave of mass affluence is being passed on.” Recent changes to inheritance tax on pensions, announced by the Chancellor in October, might mean the ‘bank of mum and dad’ becomes even more generous over the next few years.
It’s also notable that buyers have simply changed their behaviour to absorb the extra costs of higher mortgage rates, by allocating more of their monthly income to mortgage repayments and by stretching mortgage terms – figures from the trade body UK Finance show the current average length of new loans to first-time buyers is 31 years.
All the data points to the incredible resilience of the UK housing market. The constrained supply of property, coupled with sky high rents, means that many people will stop at nothing to get that first toe on the housing ladder. We would expect to see average house prices breach the £300,000 mark early next year as mortgage rates continue to ease off.
Original publication: kensingtonhouse.com, 1 January 2025. The organisations quoted are named in the text; their figures are reported as they stood on the publication date.