Housing and Rental Prices to Rise on UK’s Pandemic Exit
- By Sam van de Schootbrugge
- 2 min read
On 17 May, England reached Step 3 in its roadmap out of lockdown. A largely successful vaccination rollout has brought cases below an average of 2,000 a day (60,000 in January) and allowed workplace mobility to recover to its highest level for the pandemic (Chart 1).
The partial return to normality will come as a relief to many parts of the economy. But one sector already buoyed by excess savings, government support and changing lifestyles has been the UK residential housing market. With average house prices up between 6.7 and 8.8% since March 2020, depending on the measure, the average household has in real terms banked around £16,500 on their house. Also, monthly asking prices have, on average, grown more than twice as quickly during the pandemic in many regions (Chart 2).
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