Average UK house prices had topped £250,000 for the time in history after rising 8.4% year-on-year in April, a slight cooling off from March’s 9% clip.
Real estate company Zoopla revealed on Monday that average UK house prices hit a record high of £250,200 over the twelve months ended 30 April but the property market appeared to be showing signs of slowing down as potential buyers face pressure on finances amid the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Property values edged ahead by just 0.2% during April, compared with monthly gains of 0.7% at the start of the year, with Wales seeing the strongest price gains for the 15th consecutive month as property values rose 11.6%.
At the other end of the scale, London continued to lag behind other regions, posting growth of just 3.6%.
However, while both the time taken to sell a home and the number of properties selling for a discounted rate increased in April, house prices were not expected to fall any time soon but the rate at which property values rise was predicted to ease during the rest of 2022.
Zoopla’s head of research Gráinne Gilmore said: “The annual rate of price growth will ease this year, on a monthly basis, price growth has already moderated. A continuation of this trend, even with some small monthly declines, means price growth will reach 3% by the end of the year.
“Given the number of homeowners on fixed-rate mortgages, which protect them against interest rate rises in the short to medium-term, the stress tests carried out on those loans, and the healthy employment market, we are not expecting a raft of forced sales in 2022, which is usually the trigger for price falls.”
