THE AVERAGE UK HOUSE PRICE TOPS ￡250,000 BUT THE ‘MARKET STARTING TO SLOW’

The average price of a UK home has topped ￡250,000 for the first time, but the proportion of sellers reducing their asking price and the time taken to sell a home have both increased.

The property company, which bases its monthly snapshot on a combination of sold prices, mortgage valuations and data for agreed sales, said the average cost of a home hit ￡250,200 in April, but that the pace of price growth was slowing.

Annual house price inflation was down from 9% in March to 8.4%, and it is expected to fall to 3% by the end of the year.

The housing market was “sell much busier than pre-pandemic norms”, but signs were emerging that a slowdown was coming.

In the second half of April, around one in 20 properties have had price reductions of 5% or more an increase from one in 22 properties during the previous month.?

Sellers were also waiting slightly longer typically to achieve a sale. Outside London, the average time between a three-bedroom house being listed for sale and a sale agreed to rise from 16 days in March to 18 days in April.

In London, this average figure increased from 17 days in March to 21 days in April. Grainne Gilmore, head of research said, “We expect that this measure will continue to rise during the rest of the year as buyer demand levels start to fall, punctured by changing sen?ment around the cost of living and personal finances.”

Vincent Dennington said, “We are starting to see more and more price reductions on property portals, which is perhaps an early indication that the market is slowing down.”??