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British housing prices contracted unexpectedly in March while the stamp break ended, according to lender Halifax, before mortgage rates dropped in April in the back of the American prices.
The average price of housing fell 0.5% between February and March, after a drop of 0.2% the previous month, reaching the average cost at £ 296,699, the data showed on Monday.
Housing price increased by 2.8% compared to March from last year, unchanged from February.
This decision contrasts with analysts’ expectations, which had increased an increase of 0.1% per month and an annual expansion of 3.5%, according to the LSEG survey.
Amanda Bryden, chief of mortgages Halifaxsaid: “Housing prices increased in January while buyers rushed to beat the deadline of March.
The holidays, introduced in September 2022, when mortgage rates increased rapidly, ended in March.
House purchases for Buyers for the first time Completed from April 1 will begin to pay the tax on properties of £ 300,000 or more, rather than £ 425,000 currently, with similar changes for buyers not for the first time.
The decline occurred before the announcement by the US President of US President Donald Trump imports on goods on goods in the United States, encouraging global actions to tumble and a drop in exchange rates, which shape the mortgage rates offered by lenders.
Mark Harris, director general of the mortgage broker, SPF Private Customers, said that if the exchange rates remained depressed, “lenders could respond with a fixed rate of five years starting with a” 3 “as opposed to the current position of one or two prices of less than 4%”.
He said: “It would help affordability and give buyers renewed confidence to make their movement.”
Rice Malik, mortgage broker at the financial advisor R3 Wealth, said: “If borrowing costs drop, the drop in the price of housing should be reversed as market activity increases.”
However, Ashley Webb, British economist at Capital Economics, said lenders “will probably examine the sharp drop in market interest rates until the dust of American prices stabilizes”.
Bryden of Halifax is expecting a “modest increase” of housing prices this year, helped by the Bank of England, reducing interest rates and still accelerating wages.
However, it noted that “potential buyers are still faced with challenges in the new normal higher loan costs, a limited offer of properties available from which choose and an uncertain economic perspective”.
Halifax data has shown that Northern Ireland continues to record the annual growth in the highest real estate price of any nation or region, increasing by 6.6% in March to an average of £ 206,620.
London experienced annual growth in the slowest annual prices at 1.1% in March and remained the most expensive market with average accommodation prices of £ 543,370.
Figures published last week by the lender Nationally has shown that housing prices were wedged in March. The BOE reported last week that mortgage approvals had marginally decreased in the first two months of the year.
