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Land Registry HPI December 2022

ended 15. February 2023

On Wednesday at 09:30, the Land Registry is publishing its December house price index, based on completed sales. It's likely to show annual and monthly price growth continued to decline, as the mini-Budget started to feed into values. If you'd like the chance to be featured in the local and national media on Wednesday, please answer any or all of the Qs below.

  • With inflation predicted by the Bank of England to have peaked and fixed rates falling, do you expect there to be less a property market crash in 2023 than a correction?
  • How has demand for residential property been in 2023 to date? Stronger or weaker than you'd expected back in Nov/Dec?
  • When do you think property values will bottom out? Spring, Summer, Autumn – or 2024? And by how much could they fall in percentage terms?

Any other thoughts, anecdotes or insights from the front line, jot them down.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Graham Cox
Director at Bridging Hub
With economic headwinds moving from Gale Force 10 to Gale Force 8 in recent weeks, there are reasons to be optimistic that the UK can weather the storm. Lower mortgage rates than expected have certainly helped, but there's still much uncertainty, and consumer confidence is low. My best guess is house prices will fall 15% this year, and less than 5% early next before levelling off in summer 2024. This is great news for first-time buyers.
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Austyn Johnson
Founder at Mortgages For Actors
There shouldn't be a house price crash, as over the years, lenders have been adapting their processes to make sure there is a buffer to minimise struggles caused by rising rates and employment issues. People are also getting savvy and a lot of people who have been made redundant, have gone self-employed to keep some money coming in. This is a correction, and bit by bit, the corrections should smooth over the wobble and create some stability. Here's hoping anyway. When The McDonald's drive-thru is empty every day, then I'll worry.
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Sofia Jones
Mortgage & Insurance Adviser at Penny House
Though annual price growth is now back in single digits, and prices fell by 0.4% in December, I think we will see less of a property crash than many have been predicting. A correction is looking increasingly likely. With inflation edging down more than expected, we're likely now near the top of the current base rate increase cycle. Once inflation is back to target, we may even see the Bank of England cut rates to stimulate the economy, which will support house prices and reignite demand. That being said, though demand has fallen since the mini-Budget, it has by no means dropped off a cliff. The start of 2023 has been very busy for estate agents and mortgage advisers, and there’s still a lot of competition for property. Given the lack of supply, prices are unlikely to fall as much as we felt was likely back in October.
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Rhys Schofield
Brand Director at Peak Mortgages and Protection
Adam Smith popularised supply and demand in 1776, a concept that most of us understand. At the core of our broken property market is that there are not enough houses to go round and the gap gets worse each year as we don't build nearly enough new ones which means prices can only really go one way. Those doom-mongers talking up a crash are likely to be disappointed this year in what just feels like a normal pre-Covid market. Business is brisk and rates generally aren't as bad as people had actually feared for normal residential customers.