The housing market is showing ‘green shoots’ of recovery, but will remain subdued for the rest of this year, according to Nationwide
The housing market is showing ‘green shoots’ of recovery, but will remain subdued for the rest of this year, according to Nationwide.
The construction bank predicted yesterday that prices will fall by 4.5 percent in 2023 and grow again next year, but only by 0.7 percent.
Nationwide’s chief finance officer Chris Rhodes said activity in the housing market – hit by the disastrous mini-budget in the fall – was still a fifth lower than last summer.
But he added: “I think it’s fair to say there are some early shoots of positivity with returning volumes and house price stability.”
The country’s GDP outlook remains bleak, predicting the economy will experience a “modest recession” this year, contracting by 1.1 percent.
‘Green shoots’: Nationwide predicted prices will drop 4.5 percent in 2023 and grow again next year, but only 0.7 percent
Nationwide’s most recent monthly home price numbers have shown what it described as “tentative signs of recovery” in the market.
They showed that prices had increased by 0.5 percent in April, but were still 2.7 percent lower than in the same month a year earlier.
The latest comments come after David Miles, a senior economist at the UK’s budget watchdog, said the era of “massive” house price rises could soon be over.
Miles, a forecaster with the Office for Budget Responsibility and a professor at Imperial College, said the rampant increases of the past 40 years may be “almost at an end” thanks to slowing population growth, the increase in home-working and higher interest rates.