Brexit process seen impacting on 2017 residential property market in UK

For a long time to come, the impact of the decision by United Kingdom to leave the European Union will be on its economy, particularly the residential property market. It is expected that the start of processes to exit the union will lead to a 2 percent rise in property prices in the country in 2017.

In its latest report, Propertywire, a residential property online platform, says the performance of the residential property market in the UK will depend on how the economy develops in 2017—the year the nation starts the process of leaving the European Union.

It quotes the Nationwide, the second largest mortgage provider in the UK and the world’s largest building society as forecasting modest price growth of around 2 percent, adding that its chief economist, Robert Gardner, believes that what happens is intrinsically linked with the economy.

“Like most forecasters, including the Bank of England, we expect the UK economy to slow modestly next year, which is likely to result in less robust labour market conditions and modestly slower house price growth,’ he said.

“But we continue to think a small gain of around 2 percent is more likely than a decline over 2017 as a whole, since low interest rates are expected to help underpin demand while a shortage of homes on the market will continue to provide support for house prices”, Gardner explained.

He added that the major house builders appeared to have capacity to expand output, with most reporting land banks that could support around five years’ worth of construction at current rates of building activity. “However, there is a risk that the uncertain economic outlook may weigh on activity in the period ahead”, he predicted.

In his forecast Gardner, also looked at what has happened in 2016 and said that overall house price growth remained in a fairly narrow range between 4 percent and 6 percent throughout the year which was in line with expectations.

He pointed out that a number of policy changes have made it difficult to gauge the underlying strength of housing demand for much of 2016. In particular, the imposition of additional stamp duty on second homes in April led to a record number of property transactions in March as people brought forward purchases to avoid additional tax liabilities, resulting in an inevitable fall back in activity during the summer.

“The picture was further obscured by the gyrations of some forward looking indicators of economic activity and consumer sentiment in the wake of the Brexit vote, where a number of indicators recorded large, but short lived declines.

“However, what made the most difference to the market in 2016 was that the fundamentals underpinning housing demand remained solid. Labour market conditions were robust with strong employment growth, healthy gains in real wages, thanks in part to low inflation, and borrowing costs falling to new record lows,’ ”, Gardner added.

He thinks that the relative stability in the rate of house price growth throughout 2016 suggests that softening in housing demand that was seen through the summer months was broadly matched on the supply side of the market.

“In fact, the number of new homes built in England has picked up, but is not sufficient to keep up with the expected increase in the population”, said Garner, adding that in the four quarters to the third quarter of 2016, some 142,000 new homes were completed, 33 percent higher than the low point seen in 2010.

“However, this is still around 12 percent below the average rate of building in the five years before the financial crisis and 37 percent below the 225,000 new households projected to form each year over the coming decade”, he said.