Filtered by Subscriptions: UK Housing Use setting UK Housing
The easing in house price growth in both February and March suggests momentum in the housing market is waning. What’s more, as we now think the Bank of England will press pause on the interest rate cutting cycle later this year, mortgage rates may fall a …
2nd April 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. House prices continue to lose momentum The stagnation in Nationwide house prices in March suggests any boost from buyers rushing to complete home purchases ahead of the rise in …
1st April 2025
Overview – We’ve become more concerned about the outlook for the economy due to the drags from higher businesses taxes and the more uncertain global backdrop being bigger than we thought and the boost from government spending being smaller. Our forecasts …
31st March 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Tentative signs households may be starting to spend a bit more freely February’s money and lending figures provide some green shoots of households starting to save less and spend …
Despite saying the “world is changing”, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, today just tinkered with fiscal policy. This left the impression that bigger changes lie ahead. Indeed, the pressure to raise both defence and other public spending is only likely to …
26th March 2025
It is becoming clear that President Trump’s actions are driven by both his fixation on reducing the US trade deficit and his transactional approach to dealing with other countries. So, even though the Trump administration’s ideas to transform the entire …
25th March 2025
The surge in rental demand is over, but rental demand will probably remain stronger than pre-pandemic levels. That suggests the prop to rents growth in 2025 and 2026 from solid demand will fade only slowly. Fundamentally, changes in rental demand are …
13th March 2025
Weak economy finally taking its toll on housing demand February’s RICS survey suggests the downside risks to our 2025 forecasts for housing demand and prices from the weak economy continue to grow. But bigger falls in mortgage rates than most expect over …
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. House prices may be starting to lose some momentum The small 0.1% m/m fall in Halifax house prices in February is at odds with the 0.4% m/m rise in the Nationwide measure and …
7th March 2025
Higher costs drive construction activity to post-pandemic low The headline CIPS construction PMI dropped to 44.6 in February, from 48.1 in January, which was the lowest reading since May 2020. Part of the decline was due to a sharp fall in the volatile …
6th March 2025
The ‘race for space’ following the pandemic and shift to remote work is evident in both the UK and US, with houses becoming more expensive relative to flats. And that premium for larger homes looks set to endure. While there may be a further small …
4th March 2025
The events of the past two weeks have called into question whether the US is severing ties not just with adversaries such as China but also allies, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. This would radically alter the shape of the fractured …
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Households still in the mood to save rather than spend The stagnating economy is partly because households appear to be continuing to save rather than spend, which is unlikely to …
3rd March 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Housing market maintaining momentum as the wider economy is losing it Some of the bigger-than-expected 0.4% m/m rise in Nationwide house prices in February (consensus and Capital …
28th February 2025
The acceleration in house price growth in January suggests the housing market has maintained momentum as the wider economy is losing it. What’s more, our forecast for mortgage rates to fall further than is widely anticipated suggests the market will …
26th February 2025
Our senior economists hosted this special online briefing shortly after Rachel Reeves delivered her Spring Forecast, to answer client questions about the macro and market implications, including: The big takeaways on tax, spending and investment; What …
The strength of the recovery in housing activity and prices in the second half of last year caught many off guard. But can the market continue to recover at this pace in the face of higher stamp duty and a weaker economy? Members from our UK Housing, …
25th February 2025
The decision by the US and Russia to “lay the groundwork” to end the war in Ukraine marks a potentially significant turning point after three years of conflict. Negotiations will take time and the macroeconomic implications will depend on the features of …
18th February 2025
A weaker economy than we previously thought could mean housing demand is a bit more subdued than we expect. But our forecast for mortgage rates to fall further than is widely anticipated suggests transactions will continue to recover and house prices can …
17th February 2025
Higher mortgage rates and weak activity starting to weigh on housing demand January’s RICS survey suggests that the recent rises in mortgage rates and the downbeat economic outlook weighed on housing demand at the start of this year. But bigger falls in …
13th February 2025
While it is possible that a fall in mortgage rates will trigger a modest increase in the number of rental properties over the next two years, we doubt this will offset the weakness in rental supply over the past decade. Our forecast is for tight supply to …
11th February 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Housing market continues to shrug off sluggish economy The 0.7% m/m rise in the Halifax house price index in January is at odds with the muted 0.1% m/m increase in the Nationwide …
7th February 2025
Rise in interest rates puts a dampener on construction activity The headline CIPS construction PMI dropped to 48.1 in January, from 53.3 in December, indicating the first contraction in activity since February 2024. The decline in the headline balance …
6th February 2025
This is the first in a series of pieces that revisit our pandemic-era forecasts about the future of global real estate markets and cities and explore how they will evolve in the coming years. This dedicated page highlights key analysis from our earlier …
5th February 2025
Overview – Our forecast that mortgage rates will fall further than widely expected suggests that a decent recovery in transactions will allow house prices to rise by around 3.5% this year and by 4.5% next year, which would be a bit more than the …
4th February 2025
Recovery in mortgage lending will pause in Q2 Demand for mortgage credit jumped in Q1 in response to the drop in mortgage rates over the second half of 2023. But a rise in financial market interest rates this week, due to higher-than-expected inflation in …
1st February 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Higher mortgage rates starting to weigh on prices, but it won’t last Although the muted 0.1% m/m rise in Nationwide house prices in January was slightly worse than expected …
31st January 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Downbeat outlook isn’t heavily weighing on households’ financial decisions December’s money and lending figures suggest the downbeat economic outlook isn’t weighing on households …
30th January 2025
The Shape of the Fractured World in 2025 The share of the fracturing global economy that is accounted for by China and its geopolitical allies contracted in 2024, leaving it under a third the size of the US bloc at the start of 2025. This fall was in part …
17th January 2025
Higher mortgage rates appear to be weighing on housing demand December’s RICS survey suggests that the relief rally after the Budget may have started to fade at the end of last year and the recent rise in mortgage rates have finally began to weigh on …
16th January 2025
With long-dated gilt yields hitting multi-decade highs, we held an online Drop-In session on Wednesday to discuss the outlook for the gilt market and the implications for government policy and the UK macro and housing market outlook. (See a recording here …
9th January 2025
Construction activity continues to expand despite drag from housing The headline CIPS construction PMI eased to a six-month low of 53.3 in December, from 55.2 in November, although that indicates construction activity is still expanding. The decline in …
7th January 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. House prices may be losing a bit of momentum going into 2025 The small fall in the Halifax house price index in December is at odds with the chunky rise in the Nationwide measure …
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Downbeat sentiment continues to weigh on households’ financial decisions November’s money and lending data suggests that households’ caution with their borrowing and saving ahead …
3rd January 2025
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Strong end to 2024 and outlook for 2025 better than most expect December’s better-than-expected 0.7% m/m increase in Nationwide house prices means that prices continued to gather …
2nd January 2025
The sharp rise in transactions in October and the acceleration in house price growth in November suggest some relief rally or pent-up demand after the Budget is more than offsetting the recent rises in mortgage rates. In any case, if we’re right that Bank …
17th December 2024
The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) November house price data release indicates unusually large increases in new build house prices in recent months. We suspect that this reported rise does not reflect genuine trends in the current market. In fact, …
12th December 2024
Housing market resilient to higher mortgage rates November’s RICS survey provides further evidence that housing activity and prices remained resilient to the rise in mortgage rates in November. And our view that mortgage rates will start to fall again …
This publication has been updated to reflect changes to our forecasts after the October GDP release on 13th December 2024. Overview – Despite the deterioration in the outlook for the UK's key trading partners, we remain optimistic that UK GDP growth will …
10th December 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Post-Budget relief rally more than offsets higher mortgage rates The leap in Halifax house prices in November mirrors the jump in the Nationwide measure and suggests that some …
6th December 2024
Jump in commercial activity supports a rise in the headline balance The headline CIPS construction PMI increased to 55.2 in November, from 54.3 in October, indicating an expansion of construction activity. The rise was entirely driven by the commercial …
5th December 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Shrugging off higher mortgage rates November’s surprisingly large rise in the Nationwide house price index suggests the housing market is picking up momentum despite recent rises …
2nd December 2024
We held an online session on US import tariffs on 26th November. (See a recording here ). In this Update we answer the questions we were most asked. What are Trump’s motives for threatening tariffs and will he follow through? Trump has spoken about using …
29th November 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Pre-Budget jitters clearly influenced households’ financial decisions October’s money and lending figures suggest that Budget worries prompted households to become more cautious …
Even if the government’s easing of planning rules were to mean that at least 300,000 new home approvals in England were granted a year, the number of construction workers would need to rise significantly. We estimate about 500,000 extra construction …
26th November 2024
President-elect Donald Trump’s first threatened tariffs since the election are designed to extract concessions on drug trafficking and illegal border crossings, which means it may be possible for the countries targeted – Canada, Mexico and China – to head …
We discussed the global impact of higher tariffs in a Drop-In on Tuesday, 26th November. Click here to watch the 20-minute online briefing. In this Focus, we construct a framework to explore the channels through which an import tariff works, which we use …
25th November 2024
Our new forecast that Bank Rate will fall slower and not as far means that we now think mortgage rates will decline from 4.4% in October to 3.9% by the end of 2026, rather than to 3.5%. But we still think that mortgage rates will fall by more than most …
20th November 2024
Our senior economists hosted an online briefing to discuss the final Fed, ECB and Bank of England decisions of 2024. During the session they highlighted key takeaways from the latest communications and addressed key issues, including: What inflation and …
19th November 2024
Our forecast that Bank Rate will fall slower means that we now think mortgage rates will decline from 4.4% now to 3.9% by the end of 2026, rather than to 3.5%. But we still think that mortgage rates will fall by more than most expect and that house price …
14th November 2024
