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Halifax House Price Index Dec 2022

ended 05. January 2023

The Halifax is publishing its December HPI on Friday at 07:00. Last week's Nationwide HPI for the same month showed a property market under pressure, with the rate of annual price growth falling sharply. So go on then, give us your views on the property market in December and tell us what you think's going to happen to prices in 2023. If you can slip in a quote from Antonin Artaud, we'll probably pin your comment.

6 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Mike Staton
Director at Staton Mortgages
Life consists of burning-up questions, one of which is what will happen to house prices. It's inevitable that house prices will drop, we have had 2 years of record house price increases, and we will see a housing price reset this year with prices dropping by around 5%. Remember, what goes up, must come down
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
These are the snowflakes that started the avalanche. People will be in no rush to buy properties at the top of the mountain in the New Year. There is plenty of room for prices to fall and I expect little activity in the market until we know where prices decide to settle and that won’t be until late Spring. For buyers who are willing to wait until then, this will be the time to bag a bargain. There will be a lot of distressed sellers needing to offload their properties as they cannot cope with the cost of living. I expect interest rates may have peaked by then. If the market could talk about its current state, "I, myself am an absolute abyss".
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Alastair Hoyne
CEO, Finanze Capital at Finanze Capital
We expect residential property prices to fall throughout 2023 as demand slumps due to several factors, including but not limited to, a drop in mortgage approvals and sellers being forced to settle below their asking prices. Affordability will continue to be a driving factor in the fall of residential property prices in the coming months. Across the UK we predict a -10.98% drop over the year with the largest fall in London of -15.40% over the year. Closely followed by the South East at -13.10%. We expect the North East and West to fall the least, -8.20% and -8.80% respectively.
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Gary Boakes
Director at Verve Financial
With the Average house price to the average income in the UK hitting a peak of 7x last year and 11x for london it is not a surprise that house prices are only going to go one way this year. we are going to need house prices to slow down while the rest of the economy and salaries catch up as the level required to purchase a property at the moment is not sustainable.
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Jonathan Burridge
Founding Adviser at We Are Money
There is great pressure on property prices and they are going to give, some more than others. There remains huge demand so the first-time buyer and second-homer properties are likely to be impacted the least for the shortest time. If landlords sell up there be a queue of buyers for some time to come. Rates are probably close to where they will remain for a while, so, we will see prices cool until incomes or consumer expectation changes. I don't believe a crash is coming, more likley will be simple stagnation - which is long overdue as the low cost of borrowing has fueled the market. I can say this because I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.
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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
Whether house prices have a soft landing or fall in to the absolute abyss is anyone's guess. Mine is that house prices fall 15-20% this year and 25-30% peak to trough. I believe the decrease will be much greater than many economists and vested interests are predicting.

One difference this time around may be that lender's show more forebearance for borrowers in difficulty. Allowing homeowners to move onto interest-only for example, could mean we see fewer repossessions than in previous downturns.